GIFT    OF 
JANE  Ko FATHER 


r'l 


RULING  IDEAS  IN  EARLY  AGES 


RULING    IDEAS 
IN     EARLY    AGES 


AND   THEIR   RELATION   TO 


OLD   TESTAMENT    FAITH 


LECTURES  DELIVERED  TO 
GRADUATES  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD 


BY 

J.   B.   MOZLEY,   D.D. 

REGIUS   PROFESSOR   OF   DIVINITY,    AND   CANON   OF   CHRIST   CHURCH 


gorft 

E.   P.  BUTTON   AND    COMPANY 

MDCCCLXXVII 


II 

7 


TO 

THE  RIGHT  HONOURABLE 

LORD    BLACHFORD, 

IN  MEMORY  OF  COLLEGE  DAYS, 

WHEN   HE   FIRST   LEARNT   TO   ESTIMATE 

HIGH  GIFTS  OF  MIND  AND  HEART, 

THIS   VOLUME 

IS   INSCRIBED 
BY   HIS   AFFECTIONATE   FRIEND, 

THE  AUTHOR. 

CHRIST  CHURCH,  Nov.  23,  1876. 


AD  VERTISEMENT. 

THE  following  course  of  ten  Lectures  was  delivered  to 
Graduates  mostly  engaged  in  tuition  in  Michaelmas 
and  Lent  terms,  1874-1875. 

The  Lecture  on  St.  Augustine's  controversy  with 
the  Manichseans  is  one  of  a  previous  course,  but  is 
added  here  as  bearing  closely  upon  the  main  subject 
of  the  present  volume. 


CONTENTS. 

LECTURE  I. 
ABRAHAM. 

Abraham  the  introducer  of  a  new  and  pure  religion — Early  paganism 
could  not  conceive  the  worship  of  God — The  character  of  Abraham 
as  a  man  of  independent  thought — The  conception  of  one  God 
brought  with  it  the  question  of  the  Divine  justice — Abraham 
lived  in  the  future — His  prophetic  look  singled  out  by  our  Lord 
— Vestiges  of  prophecy  among  the  heathen  :  the  Sibyl — Physical 
side  of  prophecy :  Bacon — Difference  in  the  treatment  of  prophecy 
by  paganism  and  true  religion — Abraham's  qualifications  for 
founding  a  true  religion — Abraham  the  father  and  also  the  apostle 
of  his  nation — Looking  forward,  he  sees  his  own  greatness  as  a 
founder — A  posthumous  name  not  a  Gospel  motive — The  Gospel 
the  tidings  of  a  real  immortality  ....  Pages  1-30 


LECTURE  II. 
SACRIFICE   OF   ISAAC. 

Usual  answer  to  objectors  on  the  summary  mode  of  dealing  with  human 
life  in  Old  Testament — Bishop  Butler — Certain  Divine  commands 
once  proved  by  miracles  would  not  be  proved  by  them  now — 
Rights  of  human  life  part  of  the  moral  progress  of  mankind — One 
remarkable  want  in  the  ancient  mind :  the  idea  of  the  individu- 
ality of  man — The  slave,  the  wife,  the  son,  all  property  of  another 
— Oriental  law — Spartan  law — Roman  law — Prevalence  of  human 
sacrifices  in  ancient  religions — These  defective  ideas  traceable  in 
Patriarchal  Jewish  minds — No  opposing  argument  to  a  miracle  in 


xii  Contents. 

Abraham's  mind — Abraham  sacrifices  a  life  which  he  thought  his 
own — God  suits  His  commands  to  the  age — Self-surrender  of  the 
act — Out  of  an  inferior  state  of  ideas  an  act  of  sublime  self- 
sacrifice  was  extracted — The  rudeness  of  an  age  admits  of  exalted 
acts  built  on  it — Every  period  of  the  world  contributes  a  special 
moral  beauty  , Pages  31-63 


LECTURE  III. 
HUMAN   SACRIFICES. 

Theory  of  one  school  that  Abraham's  sacrifice  was  after  the  pattern  of 
the  day — Scripture  account  plainly  against  this  idea — The  sacri- 
fice of  Isaac  not  an  offering  for  sin  but  a  trial  of  faith — No  sin 
to  be  atoned  for  mentioned — Abraham  believed  that  the  victim 
would  be  restored  to  life — Argument  that  this  would  take  away 
the  merit,  answered — The  act  designed  as  a  type  of  the  Great 
Propitiation — the  Brazen  Serpent — The  heathen  recognised  the 
principle  of  sacrifice — Summary  of  this  and  preceding  Lecture 

Pages  64-82 

LECTURE  IV. 
EXTERMINATING   WARS. 

The  right  of  God  to  the  life  of  nations  the  same  as  to  the  life  of  indi- 
viduals— Argument  of  objectors — Miracles — Samaritan  village — 
Punishment  of  children  for  sins  of  fathers — Oriental  practice  of 
this  mode  of  retribution — Justice  sometimes  becomes  a  passion — 
All  passion  tends  to  the  unreasonable,  and  makes  objects  for 
itself — Livy — Aristotle  —  Blood  composes  identity  in  Oriental 
justice — Israelites  shared  the  general  feeling — The  command  to 
destroy  whole  nations  did  not  offend  their  ideas  of  justice — 
Distinction  in  the  mode  of  holding  the  principle — No  resistance 
to  it  in  the  moral  sense  in  early  ages — Modern  society  is  pene- 
trated by  a  sense  of  individuality  .  .  .  .ffcgfcr  83-103 


Contents.  xiii 

LECTURE  V. 

VISITATION  OF  THE  SINS  OF  FATHERS 
UPON  CHILDREN. 

The  task  of  separating  the  permanent  from  the  temporary  parts  of  the 
law — The  Sermon  on  the  Mount — St.  Paul  only  recognises  the 
perfect  law — What  the  Deity  admits  because  of  the  hardness  of 
men's  hearts — Commands  given  in  judicial  anger — Balaam — The 
laws  of  marriage,  divorce,  retaliation — Second  Commandment — 
In  the  old  dispensation  children  suffered  judicially — We  do  not 
now  understand  the  Second  Commandment  as  judicial  but  didactic 
— So  understood  before  the  end  of  Jewish  dispensation — Ezekiel 
— Bishop  Taylor — Bishop  Sanderson — Double  aspect  of  extra- 
ordinary Divine  commands — Korah,  Dathan,  and  Abiram  ;  Achan, 
Saul,  etc. — Our  interpretation  of  these  acts  differs  from  the  contem- 
porary one Pages  104-125 


LECTURE  VI. 
JAEL. 

In  what  light  would  an  enthusiastic  mind  of  that  day  view  the 
Israelitish  invasion? — Sight  of  a  whole  nation  worshipping  God — 
Ancient  pagan  world  believed  truth  to  belong  to  the  few — Civil  con- 
stitution of  Israel  contrary  to  that  of  all  heathen  nations — Israel 
a  theocracy — The  Exodus — The  promulgation  of  the  Law — The 
entrance  into  Canaan — Extraordinary  fact  of  a  woman  rousing  her 
countrymen  to  war — St.  Augustine's  supposition  :  Jael  must  have 
known  the  state  of  affairs — Destruction  of  the  inhabitants  primary 
condition  of  conquest — This  condition  only  suspended — Extracts 
from  Dr.  Stanley — The  Judges  not  civil  but  military  rulers — Office 
of  Judge — Too  commonly  imagined  that  Jael  was  apart  from  the 
religious  influences  of  the  time — More  probably  one  with  Israel 
in  faith — The  Kenezites — Jehonadab — Jael's  partizanship — Who 
Sisera  was  —  His  probable  character  and  importance  —  Jael's 
history  a  fragment Pages  126-152 


xiv  Contents. 


LECTURE  VII. 

CONNECTION  OF  JAEL'S  ACT  WITH  THE 
MORALITY  OF  HER  AGE. 

The  command  on  which  Jael  acted  not  one  in  the  full  sense  of  com- 
mands to  Christians — The  treachery  of  her  act — St.  Paul's  posi- 
tion on  the  duty  of  truth-speaking — When  the  bonds  of  charity 
are  broken,  does  this  affect  the  duty  of  truth  ? — The  argument  of 
the  murderer — Essential  for  a  perfect  defence  of  Jael  that  the 
command  on  which  she  acted  should  be  without  reserve — This  a 
command  in  accommodation — Great  omission  of  that  day,  idea 
of  human  individuality — Duke  of  Wellington's  character  of  the 
Hindus — Does  the  defence  of  Jael's  act  imply  approbation  of  the 
whole  of  Scripture  ? — Deborah  judged  according  to  the  standard 
of  her  own  day — Jael's  a  grand  act,  on  the  principle,  Love  your 
friend  and  hate  your  enemy  —  Different  position  of  lying  in 
civilisation  and  barbarism — The  creed  of  Love  your  friend  and 
hate  your  enemy  fostered  subtle  mixtures  of  character — Esprit  de 
corps — We  are  apt  to  suppose  rude  ages  simple — What  civilisation 
has  done  for  truth  and  plain  dealing  .  .  Pages  153-179 


LECTURE  VIII. 
LAW   OF   RETALIATION. 

Biblical  critics  do  not  make  allowance  for  a  progressive  revelation 
— Legislation  must  be  legislation  for  the  present  moment  — 
Principle  of  accommodation — Law  of  retaliation — Dean  Alford  on 
Matthew  v.  38 :  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  and  hate  thine 
enemy — Effect  of  this  law  in  creating  esprit  de  corps — Tacitus  on 
the  Jewish  temper — The  enemy  not  always  a  heathen  to  the  Jew 
— Saul,  Ahithophel — Enemy  in  the  Gospel — Case  where  the  enemy 
was  also  enemy  of  God — The  damnatory  Psalms  Pages  180-200 


Contents.  xv 

LECTURE  IX. 
RETALIATION  :   LAW  OF  GOEL. 

The  law  of  Goel — Michaelis— Sanctioned  by  Moses — Nothing  optional 
in  this  law — Mistake  of  commentators  on  the  passion  of  revenge 
— The  task  imposed  by  the  law  of  Goel — Men  not  always  faithful 
to  rights  of  the  dead — Rude  ages  not  without  moderate  tactics — 
Fines  for  murder— Hindus — Germans— Death  for  death  the  only 
way  to  meet  murder — Reference  to  Lecture  V. — Law  of  Goel  not 
an  inhuman  idea  to  that  age — Acts  of  modern  enthusiasts— 
An  imperfect  idea  may  be  moral  at  the  root — Principle  of  accom- 
modation—St.  Augustine — God  may  command  in  judgment — 
Opinions  of  commentators :  Calvin ;  Theodoret ;  Tertullian ; 
Chrysostom — Objector's  mode  of  treating  imperfect  morality — 
Early  struggles  of  the  great  principle  of  justice — Power  at  work  in 
the  Jewish  dispensation  ....  Pages  201-221 


LECTURE  X. 

THE  END  THE  TEST  OF  A  PROGRESSIVE 
REVELATION. 

Answers  to  objectors  to  the  foregoing  argument  —  A  progressive 
revelation  may  make  use  of  imperfect  moral  standard — It  looked 
forward — An  inward  mind  in  the  system  taught  ex  cathedrd — The 
Prophets  —  The  end  shows  the  design  of  the  system  —  While 
accommodating  itself  to  defective  ideas  it  was  eradicating  them — 
No  system  of  philosophy  taught  the  rights  of  man — The  Bible 
the  charter  of  man's  rights  —  Ancient  empire  founded  on  the 
insignificance  of  man — The  vast  body  of  philosophy  and  poetry 
formed  by  the  Bible — Pascal — Great  body  of  infidel  literature 
founded  on  same  idea — Shelley — The  communion  of  man  with 
God  affected  the  relation  of  man  with  man — The  law  thus  con- 
tained the  secret  of  his  elevation — History  shows  the  law  to  have 
been  above  the  nation — The  nation  was  terrified  into  a  formal 


xvi  Contents. 

obedience — The  enforcement  of  law  the  task  of  one  dispensation, 
its  fruits  of  another — A  progressive  revelation  must  be  judged  by 
its  end — Higher  minds  outgrew  the  law  of  their  dispensation — 
Other  nations  stopped  short — In  the  Jewish  nation  alone  the  law 
acted  as  a  guide — The  great  prophetic  order — The  objector  asks 
why  should  Divine  Kevelation  be  subject  to  conditions'? — The 
human  will:  its  capacity  of  resistance — The  whole  question 
belongs  to  the  fundamental  difficulty  of  reconciling  God's  power 
with  man's  free  will  —  Miracles  —  Temporary  morals  only  a 
scaffolding Pages  222-253 


LAST  LECTURE. 
THE  MANICH^ANS  AND  THE  JEWISH  FATHERS. 

St.  Augustine  as  a  controversialist — His  qualifications — His  first  con- 
troversy was  with  the  Manichseans — Language  of  Manichseanism 
— Hume  taken  with  the  theory — Extracts  from  Hume — John 
Stuart  Mill  on  his  father's  sympathy  with  dualism — Zoroaster 
and  the  Magi — Manichaeanism  differed  from  the  ordinary  type  of 
Oriental  religions — Aimed  at  being  a  universal  religion — Professed 
to  incorporate  certain  doctrines  of  Christianity  into  its  system — 
Acknowledged  no  true  Incarnation — Objections  of  Manichseans 
to  Old  Testament  history — It  held  the  family  life  of  the  Patriarchs 
in  contempt,  and  endeavoured  to  substitute  the  Magi  as  forefathers 
instead  of  the  Old  Testament  Saints — Faustus'  language  towards 
them— Answer  of  St.  Augustine  to  these  objections — He  acknow- 
ledges an  imperfect  morality  in  the  Old  Testament  ages — This 
does  not  affect  his  estimate  of  the  Patriarchs'  high  sanctity — 
Fundamental  unity  between  Patriarchs  and  Apostles 

Pages  254-275 


APPENDIX     ......         Pages 


LECTURE  I. 

ABRAHAM. 

Patriarch  Abraham  comes  before  us  in  Scrip- 
-*-    ture  under  the  following  main  aspects  :— 

1.  He  comes  before  us  as  the  introducer  of  a  new 
and  pure  religious  creed  and  worship — new,  I  say,  for 
though  the  doctrine  of  one  God  was  part  of  the  prime- 
val revelation,  it  had  become  much  corrupted  before 
Abraham's  time.  "  Your  fathers,"  said  Joshua  to  the 
Israelites,  "dwelt  on  the  other  side  of  the  flood  (i.e., 
the  Euphrates)  in  old  time,  even  Terah,  the  father  of 
Abraham,  and  the  father  of  Nachor :  and  they  served 
other  gods"1  (Note  1).  The  migration,  then,  from  Chal- 
daea  was  a  religious  one — the  migration  of  a  family 
which  had  cast  off  the  gods  of  its  country,  adopted  the 
worship  of  one  God,  and  sought  a  new  home  where  it 
might  conduct  this  worship  freely.  And  though  the 
"  call "  of  Abraham  is  mentioned  in  Genesis 2  as  sub- 
sequent to,  in  St.  Stephen's  statement3  as  prior  to, 
the  journey  from  Chaldaea,  the  whole  voice  of  sacred 
history  declares  Abraham  to  have  been,  under  Divine 
inspiration,  the  leader  of  that  whole  movement  which 
thus  set  up  the  worship  of  the  true  God  in  the  place 
of  idols,  and  separated  his  family  from  the  corrupt 
religion  of  the  world.  "  Put  away,"  says  Joshua, 

1  Josh.  xxiv.  2.  2  Gen.  xii.  1.  3  Acts  vii.  2,  3. 

B 


2  Abraham. 

"  the  gods  which  your  fathers  served  on  the  other  side 
the  flood;"' and  "I  took  your  father  Abraham  from 
the  other  side  the  flood."1 

Open  idolatry  then  was  the  religion  of  the  genera- 
tion in  which  Abraham  was  born ;  he  was  brought  up 
and  educated  under  it,  it  was  in  possession  of  the 
ground,  and  it  pressed  upon  him  with  all  the  power 
of  association  and  authority.  But  at  a  certain  time 
of  life  Abraham  comes  before  us  as  having  rejected 
this  creed  and  worship,  having  thrown  off  the  chains 
of  custom,  and  released  himself  from  the  thraldom  of 
early  associations :  as  holding  the  great  doctrine  of 
one  God,  whom  he  worships  by  means  of  a  spiritual 
conception  only,  without  the  aid  of  figure  or  symbol. 
He  comes  before  us  as  the  re-introducer  into  the  world 
of  the  great  normal  idea  of  worship ; — that  idea  which, 
descending  through  the  Jewish  and  Christian  dispensa- 
tions in  succession,  is  the  basis  of  the  religion  of  the 
whole  modern  civilised  world — the  worship  of  God. 
All  ancient  religion,  as  distinguished  from  the  primitive, 
laboured  under  the  total  inability  of  even  conceiving 
the  idea  of  the  worship  of  God.  It  split  and  went  to 
pieces  upon  that  rock ;  acknowledging  in  a  speculative 
sense  one  God,  but  not  applying  worship  to  Him.  The 
local,  the  limited,  the  finite,  was  as  such  an  object  of 
worship ;  the  Infinite  as  such  was  not :  the  one  was 
personal,  the  other  impersonal  ;  man  stood  in  re- 
lation to  the  one,  he  could  not  place  himself  in 
relation  to  the  other.  We  discover  in  the  Patriarch 
whom  God  extricated  from  the  self-imposed  dilemma 

1  Josh.,  xxiv.  14. 


Abraham.  3 

of  all  ancient  religion,  and  who  was  enabled  to  cast  off 
the  yoke  of  custom  and  embrace  new  truth,  the 
strength  of  a  true  rational  nature,  as  well  as  the 
devotion  of  a  reformer  of  religious  worship.  A  Divine 
revelation  does  not  dispense  with  a  certain  character 
and  certain  qualities  of  mind  in  the  person  who  is  the 
instrument  of  it.  A  man  who  throws  off  the  chains  of 
authority  and  association  must  be  a  man  of  extra- 
ordinary independence  of  mind,  and  strength  of  mind, 
although  he  does  so  in  obedience  to  a  Divine  revelation; 
because  no  miracle,  no  sign  or  wonder  which  accom- 
panies a  revelation,  can  by  its  simple  stroke  force  human 
nature  from  the  innate  hold  of  custom,  and  the  ad- 
hesion to,  and  fear  of,  established  opinion ;  can  enable 
it  to  confront  the  frowns  of  men,  and  take  up  truth 
opposed  to  general  prejudice,  except  there  is  in  the 
man  himself,  who  is  the  recipient  of  the  revelation,  a 
certain  strength  of  mind  and  independence  which 
concurs  with  the  Divine  intention.  It  is  the  Divine 
method  and  law  that  man  should  co-operate  with  God  ; 
and  that  God  should  act  by  means  of  men  who  are  fit- 
ting instruments ;  and  this  law  implies  that  those  who 
are  God's  instruments  possess  real  character  of  their  own 
in  correspondence  with  their  mission.  The  mission  to 
set  up  or  propagate  new  truth  required  in  Abraham's 
day,  in  the  natural  character  of  him  who  had  to 
execute  it,  something  of  the  nature  of  what  we  call  a 
religious  reformer  in  modern  times.  The  recipient  of 
a  new  revelation  must  have  self-reliance,  otherwise 
he  will  not  believe  that  he  has  received  it ;  he  will 
not  be  sure  of  it  against  the  force  of  current  opinions, 


4  Abraham. 

and  men  telling  him  on  every  side  that  he  is  mis- 
taken. 

Upon  this  principle  then,  that  a  Divine  mission 
requires  the  proper  man,  we  discern  in  Abraham  the 
type  which  in  modern  language  we  call  that  of  the 
man  of  thought,  upon  whom  some  deep  truth  has 
fastened  with  irresistible  power,  and  whose  mind 
dwells  and  feeds  upon  the  conviction  of  it.  The 
truth  in  the  case  of  Abraham  was  the  conception  of 
one  God.  And  we  may  observe  this  great  thought 
was  accompanied  in  his  mind,  as  it  has  been  in  all 
minds  which  have  been  profoundly  convinced  of  it, 
by  another,  which  naturally  attaches  to  it.  We  may 
recognise  in  Abraham's  colloquy  with  God  over  the 
impending  fate  of  Sodom,  something  like  the  appear- 
ance of  that  great  question  which  has  always  been 
connected  with  the  doctrine  of  the  Unity  of  God— 
the  question  of  the  Divine  justice.  The  doctrine  of 
the  Unity  of  God  raises  the  question  of  His  justice 
for  this  reason,  that — one  God,  who  is  both  good 
and  omnipotent,  being  assumed — we  immediately 
think,  Why  should  He  who  is  omnipotent  permit 
that  which  He  who  is  in  His  own  nature  supremely 
good,  cannot  desire,  that  is  evil  ?  The  thought,  it 
is  true,  does  not  come  out  in  any  regular  or  full  form 
in  this  mysterious  colloquy ;  and  yet  it  hovers  over 
it;  there  are  hints  and  forecastings  of  this  great 
question,  which  is  destined  to  trouble  the  human 
.intellect,  and  to  try  faith,  and  to  absorb  meditation, 
as  long  as  the  world  lasts.  A  shadow  passes  over, 
the  air  stirs  slightly,  and  there  is  just  that  fragment 


Abraham.  5 

of  thought  and  questioning,  which  would  be  in  place 
as  the  first  dawn  of  a  great  controversy.  "  That  be 
far  from  thee,"  "  that  the  righteous  should  be  as  the 
wicked  : "  "  shall  not  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth  do 
right  ?  " l  The  Book  of  Job  has  been  assigned  a  much 
later  date  than  the  received  one,  by  some,  on  the 
ground  that  the  deep  vein  of  thought  and  sentiment 
in  it,  the  perception  of  the  difficulty  relating  to  the 
Divine  justice,  belongs  to  a  later,  more  philosophical 
age  of  mankind,  than  that  primitive  one, — to  an  age  of 
speculation.  But  it  must  be  considered  that  this 
question  arises  immediately  upon  the  adoption  of  the 
belief  in  one  Supreme  Being :  so  that,  as  soon  as  ever 
the  belief  in  the  unity  of  God  is  obtained,  the 
question  of  His  justice  arises  with  it.  "We  need  not, 
therefore,  on  this  sole  account  alter  the  date  of  the 
Book  of  Job,  when  even  in  the  rudiments  of  thought 
which  rise  up  in  the  colloquy  over  Sodom,  we  may 
see  the  beginnings  of  that  expression  of  the  deep 
sentiment  of  justice  which  the  Book  of  Job  gives 
with  such  fulness ;  and  may  recognise  the  germ  of 
that  question  which  still  continues  to  perplex  the 
human  mind,  and  to  agitate  the  atmosphere  of 
human  poetry  and  philosophy. 

2.  Abraham  comes  before  us  as  a  person  who 
lives  in  the  future,  whose  mind  is  cast  forward, 
beyond  the  immediate  foreground  of  his  own  day, 
upon  a  very  remote  epoch  in  the  history  of  the  world, 
and  fixed  upon  a  remarkable  event  in  the  most  distant 
horizon  of  time,  the  nature  of  which  is  vague  and 

1  Gen.  xviii.  25. 


6  Abraham. 

dimly  known  to  him,  but  which  is  charged  with 
momentous  consequences,  involving  a  change  in  the 
whole  state  of  the  world.  The  revelation  is  made  to 
him,— "  In  thee  shall  all  families  of  the  earth  be 
blessed ; "  he  looks  onward  perpetually  to  the  accom- 
plishment of  this  prediction.  He  has  the  idea  in  his 
mind  of  the  world's  progress,  of  a  movement  in  the 
present  order  of  things  towards  some  great  end  and 
consummation.  This  is  a  remarkable  state  of  mind. 
Ordinary  men  do  not  live  in  the  future,  and  have 
very  little  idea  that  things  will  ever  be  different 
from  what  they  are  in  their  own  day.  The  actual 
state  of  the  world  around  them  is  the  type  of  all 
existence  in  their  eyes,  and  they  cannot  conceive 
another  mould  or  form  of  things,  or  even  imagine 
that  there  ever  can  be  another;  they  are  crea- 
tures of  present  time,  nor  do  they  ever  entertain 
distinctly  the  idea  of  the  future  existence  of  the 
world  at  all.  It  is  therefore  a  fact  to  arrest  us,  even 
if  this  was  all  we  had — a  man  in  a  primitive  age  of 
the  world,  while  he  is  standing  upon  the  very  threshold 
of  time,  having  distinctly  before  his  eyes  the  future 
existence  of  the  world,  and  an  improved  condition  of 
it.  In  the  mind  of  Abraham,  though  the  nature  of 
the  future  is  dim,  the  fact  itself  of  a  great  future  in 
store  for  the  world  is  "a  clear  conception  ;  he  does  not 
regard  things  as  stationary,  as  always  going  to  be 
what  they  are,  but  as  in  a  state  of  progress ;  he  has 
the  vision  of  a  great  change  before  him  which  is 
as  yet  in  the  extreme  distance,  but  which,  when  it 
does  come,  will  be  a  conspicuous  benefit  to  the  human 


A  braham.  7 

race,  a  blessing  in  which  all  the  families  of  the  earth 
will  share. 

This  was  a  conception  as  foreign  to  an  ordinary 
mind  of  Abraham's  day,  as  it  would  be  to  such  a  mind 
now.  Because  his  future  is  to  us  a  known  past,  we 
might  be  apt  to  imagine  that  the  conception  would 
come  as  a  matter  of  course ;  and  that  people  of  that 
early  age  of  the  world  knew  by  an  instinct  that  it 
was  an  early  age,  and  the  predecessor  of  a  later  one. 
But  there  was  just  as  much  difficulty  in  realising  a 
future  of  the  world  then,  as  there  is  now.  The  present 
of  that  day  made  the  same  impression  upon  the  genera- 
tion of  that  day,  that  to-day's  present  does  upon  men 
of  to-day ;  it  was  as  much  a  boundary  of  the  world's 
horizon,  and  stood  as  much  upon  the  very  edge  of 
time,  as  to-day  stands.  We  observe  therefore  some- 
thing very  extraordinary,  and  something  entirely 
opposed  to  the  common  habit  of  the  human  mind,  in 
the  Patriarch  Abraham's  fixed  look  into  futurity, 
directed  towards  an  indefinitely  distant  era  of  the 
world.  Our  Lord  Himself  has  singled  out  this 
prophetic  look  of  Abraham  as  something  unex- 
ampled in  clearness,  certainty,  and  far-reaching  extent. 
"  Your  father  Abraham  rejoiced  to  see  my  day ;  and  he 
saw  it,  and  was  glad." l  This  was  a  revelation  made  to 
him  indeed ;  but  he  is  equal  to  the  revelation,  he  em- 
braces it  and  concurs  in  his  whole  power  of  mind  with  it. 

This  is  the  first  thing  indeed  we  observe  in  con- 
nection with  the  subject  of  early  prophecy.  It  is  the 
preliminary  and  general  condition  of  mind  in  the  pro- 

1  John  viii.  56. 


8  Abraham. 

phetical  person  which  arrests  us  ; — that  he  has  the 
future  before  him,  that  he  thinks  of  the  world's  future, 
and  realises  that  it  has  a  future,  and  brings  home  to 
himself  the  unrolling  powers  of  time.  This  fastening 
of  the  mind  upon  the  future,  to  whatever  extent  and 
in  whatever  persons  it  existed  in  those  very  early  ages 
of  the  world  to  which  the  dawn  of  prophecy  belongs,  is 
a  most  striking  and  remarkable  feature  of  those  ages ; 
and  we  know  that  it  existed  even  under  paganism. 

Upon  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  in  the 
region  where  the  great  Roman  poet  meditated  and 
himself  listened  to  the  prophetical  strain,  stands  the 
traditional  cave  of  the  Cumsean  Sibyl, — the  repre- 
sentative of  ancient  prophecy,  as  it  existed  and  held 
its  ground,  not  under  the  Judaic  dispensation,  but 
parallel  with  it,  and  mounting  to  a  common  source. 
It  is  difficult  to  speak  of  the  Sibylline  verses,  corrupted 
as  they  were  soon  after  the  Christian  era,  so  that  the 
mass  of  the  collection  is  obviously  and  glaringly 
spurious.  There  is  a  primitive  residuum  however,  the 
style  of  which  reveals  a  native  source ;  and  the  simple 
prediction  for  which  Virgil  testifies  is  enough  to  show 
the  mind  of  the  prophetess,  not  only  with  respect  to  the 
subject  of  prophecy,  but  with  respect  to  that  general 
grasp  of  the  fact  of  a  world's  future,  and  that  look 
that  travels  forward  and  ranges  over  the  distant 
realms  of  time,  which  I  have  just  mentioned.  There 
is  the  Sibyl  upon  her  watch-tower,  with  her  eye 
carried  onward  to  a  distant  horizon,  which  she  but 
dimly  descries,  but  which  is  marked  to  her  prophetic 
eye  with  great  events.  But  what  an  extraordinary 


Abraham.  9 

state  of  mind  is  this  to  belong  to  any  human  being  in 
the  earliest  and  most  primeval  era  of  paganism  !  That 
any  man  or  woman  should  take  the  trouble  then  to 
think  of  what  would  happen  to  the  world  a  thousand 
years  off !  Were  there  not  plenty  of  important  things 
to  attend  to  then,  without  going  into  the  future  ? 
Was  there  not  the  routine  of  nature  and  the  custom 
of  society  ?  And  did  not  every  year  and  every  day 
bring  its  present  life  and  its  pressing  business,  its  im- 
mediate interests,  then  as  now?  The  sun  rose  and 
set,  the  seasons  alternated;  men  ploughed  in  the 
spring  and  gathered  in  the  autumn,  and  social  life  ran 
its  round,  and  kings  and  states  carried  on  their  affairs, 
and  wars  and  festivals,  famine  and  plenty,  grief  and 
joy,  made  up  the  chequered  life  of  man,  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  which  seemed  quite  enough  to  occupy  him. 
Why  should  one  person  go  beyond  this  present  scene, 
leap  over  generations,  and  think  of  the  world  as  it 
would  be  after  ages  had  passed  away  ?  What  an  iso- 
lated eccentric  journey  for  thought  1  What  a  dream 
to  take  up  and  absorb  the  mind  !  How  strange  an 
image  it  presents  to  us — yet  this  is  the  aspect  in  which 
the  Sibyl  comes  before  us.  In  the  crowded  and 
familiar  scene  of  a  then  living  and  bustling  paganism, 
she  is  the  devotee  to  the  world's  hereafter ;  consecrated 
to  that  idea  and  prospect,  she  gazes  upon  the  last  shore 
of  time ;  and  her  sacred  brow  is  lifted  up  above  the 
throng  of  common  objects  and  concerns,  that  her  eye 
may  rest  upon  a  mysterious  distance  and  an  unknown 
page  of  the  future  history  of  mankind !  It  is  strange, 
amid  the  scattered  fragments  which  constituted  human 


io  Abraham. 

society  then,  to  see  even  the  recognition  by  one  person's 
mind  of  a  common  humanity — a  humanity  that  had  a 
career  to  run  and  an  end  to  fulfil ;  to  see  the  great 
problem  and  riddle  of  man's  existence  acknowledged, 
and  a  solution  expected,  as  the  curtain  which  hung 
over  the  Divine  scheme  folded  up  and  disclosed 
the  final  upshot  of  it.  Amid  the  idolatry  and  cor- 
ruptions of  paganism,  the  reverence  that  was  felt  for 
the  Sibyl  is  a  curious  and  beautiful  remnant  of  the 
early  piety  of  the, world,  for  which  we  are  hardly  pre- 
pared, and  which  comes  across  us  with  a  surprise 
which  perplexes  us.  Is  this  really  paganism  that  is 
speaking  ?  It  cannot  be.  It  is  early  prophecy  which 
is  still  holding  its  ground  on  human  nature,  and  in 
popular  thought,  as  a  sentiment  ;  obtaining  from 
paganism  a  sacred  rank  for  the  Sibyl — a  rank  that 
has  been  continued  by  the  Church.  The  Church  has  in- 
corporated the  holy  prophetess  of  paganism  in  the  root 
of  the  Christian  body,  and  given  her  a  place  in  the 
prophetical  order  by  the  side  of  the  patriarchs  and  pro- 
phets of  old.  She  joins  in  the  holy  procession,  which 
begins  with  Adam,  Seth,  and  Enoch,  and  ends  with 
the  last  Christian  saint,  martyr,  and  confessor  :  she  is 
acknowledged  in  the  Church's  hymns ;  and  the  coun- 
tenance which  the  painter  has  given  her,  symbolical 
of  her  solemn  gift,  appears  in  the  Christian  gallery, 
window,  and  pictured  roof. 

But  the  prophetic  element  in  human  nature  has  its 
development  also  on  the  physical  side.  The  modern 
world's  conception  of  its  own  future  only  pictures 
indeed  the  continuation  of  a  present  movement,  and 


Abraham.  1 1 

does  not  cross  the  border  of  mystery ;  yet  it  is  an 
instance  of  the  prophetic  vein  in  human  nature.  To 
turn  to  Bacon's  vision  of  the  coming  day : — the  Novum 
Organum  awakens  us  like  a  knock  at  the  door ;  it 
is  the  first  bell  that  rings  and  gathers  the  whole  peal, 
it  is  from  first  to  last  an  announcement.  It  is  coming, 
the  great  manifestation  of  nature  ;  it  is  not  come  yet, 
but  it  will  be  here  soon  ;  it  has  been  long  coming, 
and  we  have  waited  for  it,  now  it  is  all  but  come. 
"  All  the  systems  of  philosophy  hitherto  have  been 
only  so  many  plays,  only  creations  of  fictitious  and 
imaginary  worlds ;"  there  have  been  "long  periods  of 
ages,"  and  only  some  few  observations.  Intellect  has 
not  forwarded  but  impeded  discovery,  and  "  every- 
thing has  been  abandoned  to  the  mists  of  tradition, 
the  whirl  and  confusion  of  argument,  or  the  waves  and 
mazes  of  chance/'  One  man  has  invoked  his  own 
spirit,  another  has  called  in  logic  ;  "  the  true  path  has 
not  only  been  deserted  but  intercepted  and  blocked 
up,  and  experience  has  not  only  been  neglected  but 
rejected  with  disgust."  .  .  .  "We  cannot,  therefore, 
wonder  that  no  magnificent  discoveries  worthy  of 
mankind  have  been  brought  to  light,  while  men  are 
satisfied  and  delighted  with  such  scanty  and  puerile 
tasks."1 

All  is  vague  and  arbitrary,  all  is  groping  in  the 
dark  ;  the  human  mind  is  always  pressing  forward  in 
one  direction,  but  it  is  unfit  for  transition.  But  there 
is  going  to  be  something,  and  it  is  this  awakening 
and  unfolding  of  a  fresh  morning  which  is  the  herald's 

1  Novum  Organum,  Book  I. 


12  Abraham. 

call  in  the  Novum  Organum.  There  is  the  sensation  of 
being  just  on  the  borders  of  a  great  disclosure,  while 
as  yet  all  at  this  moment  sleeps  ;  of  a  new  reign,  of  a 
world  just  going  to  break  forth  into  life.  This  consti- 
tutes the  characteristic  note,  the  prophetic  current,  of 
the  Novum  Organum ;  we  are  shut  out  just  at  present, 
nothing  is  seen ;  but  it  is  all  announcement,  all  expecta- 
tion, all  the  stir  of  something  coming,  all  the  sound  of 
trumpets,  all  the  preparation  for  an  era,  all  the  break- 
ing of  a  day.  Bacon  is  seen  in  his  principal  aspect 
as  a  prophet,  he  lives  just  on  the  edge  of  an  age  of 
marvels,  close  upon  it,  still  not  in  it,  but  foreseeing 
it ;  he  lives  in  a  future ;  the  precursor  is  gone  forward 
out  of  his  own  age.  He  lives  not  amidst  particulars, 
but  only  in  a  vision  of  general  discovery.  All  will  have 
the  suddenness,  the  brightness,  the  inexplicableness 
of  magic,  though  he  foretells  it  and  knows  it  is  coming. 
Bacon  insists  upon  the  chance  incident  to  discovery, 
how  completely  it  will  baulk  all  people  who  think 
they  have  the  road  to  it,  who  go  upon  premisses, 
and  see  their  way  to  conclusions.  "  Had  any  one 
meditated  on  balistic  machines  and  battering-rams  as 
they  were  used  by  the  ancients,  whatever  application 
he  might  have  exerted,  and  though  he  might  have  con- 
sumed a  whole  life  in  the  pursuit,  yet  would  he  never 
have  hit  upon  the  invention  of  flaming  engines  acting 
by  means  of  gunpowder ;  nor  would  any  person  who 
had  made  woollen  manufactures  and  cotton  the  subject 
of  his  observation  and  reflection  have  ever  discovered 
thereby  the  nature  of  the  silkworm  or  of  silk/'1 ...  "If 

1  Novum  Organum,  Book  II. 


Abraham.  13 

before  the  discovery  of  the  compass  any  one  had  said 
that  an  instrument  had  been  invented  by  which  the 
quarters  and  points  in  the  heavens  could  be  exactly 
taken  and  distinguished ;  men  would  have  entered  into 
disquisitions  on  the  refinement  of  astronomical  instru- 
ments, .  .  .  but  that  a  mere  mineral  or  metallic 
substance  should  yet  in  its  motion  agree  with  that 
of  such  bodies  would  have  appeared  absolutely  in- 
credible."1 

Thus  do  the  great  discoveries  flash  forth  like  magic 
in  Bacon's  future,  not  as  they  were  concerned  with 
causes  at  all — wild  conceptions,  offsprings  of  chance, 
born  amid  the  incongruous  and  heterogeneous.  A  man 
cannot  set  about  making  them ;  each  "  comes  not  by 
any  gradual  improvement  and  extension  of  the  arts, 
but  merely  by  chance."2  How  then  does  Bacon 
prophesy  "  a  vast  mass  of  inventions,"  an  age  of  dis- 
coveries, an  "  instauration,"  a  fulfilment  of  hopes,  the 
new  light  of  axioms,  the  advancement  of  the  sciences, 
the  interpretation  of  Nature,  and  the  reign  of  man  ? 
How  does  he  prophesy  a  harvest  of  discoveries  and  a 
manifestation  of  Nature?  Because  he  saw  that  though 
each  discovery  by  itself  may  be  a  chance,  when  a  great 
many  men  are  attending  to  one  subject,  and  people 
are  set  upon  nature  as  an  object  of  attention,  the 
chances  of  discovery  in  connection  with  this  subject 
must  increase,  and  there  must  be  a  multiplication  of 
this  possibility.  He  saw  that  the  investigation  of 
Nature  was  rising  in  men's  minds ;  that  men  were 
experimenting,  and  were  beginning  to  attend  to  facts 

1  Novum  Organum,  Book  L  2  Book  II. 


14  Abraham. 

and  real  physical  objects.  Hence  there  arose  that 
conclusion  which  constituted  his  prophecy.  His 
mind  was  in  acute  sympathy  with  the  growing  mind 
of  the  world,  his  pulse  moved  with  the  growing  beat 
of  human  thought  and  curiosity,  though  then  but 
faint :  he  saw  the  immense  difference  in  the  mode  of 
studying  natural  science  which  was  inaugurated  by 
this  rising  taste  for  facts,  this  putting  aside  of  the 
idols  of  the  human  mind  for  the  ideas  of  the  Divine 
mind ;  that  is  to  say,  "  certain  idle  fictions  of  the 
imagination  for  the  real  stamp  and  impression  of 
created  objects,  as  they  are  found  in  nature."1  He 
saw  a  mere  "  handful  of  phenomena  collected  into  a 
natural  history. "  But  foreseeing  this,  he  foresaw  a  world 
of  discovery ;  for  "  if  we  had  but  any  one  who  could 
actually  answer  our  interrogations  of  nature,  the  in- 
vention of  all  causes  and  sciences  would  be  the  labour 
of  but  a  few  years."2  And  even  an  approximation  to 
this  would  be  a  beginning.  The  quickness  with  which 
Bacon  caught  up  a  hint  thus  made  itself  a  prophecy. 
He  felt  himself  just  on  the  borders  of  a  new  world,  in 
the  midst  of  a  stir  of  mind  which  came  before  an 
age  of  marvels,  and  in  the  Novum  Organum  he  lives 
in  this  new  world,  in  the  era  of  the  great  manifesta- 
tion. He  lives  a  prophetic  life,  scattering  oracles  and 
pregnant  sayings,  and  welcoming  the  light  of  the  ap- 
proaching day. 

But  to  go  back.  There  is  a  wonderful  life  and 
spirit,  spring  and  joyousness,  in  early  prophecy 
which  immediately  strikes  us ;  as  well  as  a  large- 

1  Novum  Organum,  Book  I.  2  Ibid. 


Abraham.  15 

ness  of  scope  and  a  ubiquity  in  the  tongue  of  prophecy 
itself.  In  a  sense  the  whole  earth  prophesies;  the 
fount  of  prophecy  comes  up  to  the  surface,  there,  here, 
and  everywhere,  where  one  least  expects  ;  it  does  not 
go  in  one  fixed  channel  and  course,  but  rises  up  in 
different  openings  and  clefts  which  it  makes  for  itself 
all  the  world  over.  It  has  a  free  and  lively  action, 
and  wide  play.  One  common  character  pervades  the 
various  announcements  of  early  prophecy,  whether 
they  meet  us  in  the  formal  and  regular  channel  of 
the  family  of  Abraham,  or  over  the  wide  regions 
of  paganism,  in  east  or  west  ;  and  that  is  the  dis- 
closure of  a  great  state  of  happiness  and  a  blessing 
to  come  upon  this  present  earth,  under  a  personal 
restorer  and  regenerator  of  God's  own  choosing.  Of 
the  Patriarchal  prophecy  and  of  the  Sibylline  prophecy 
it  is  alike  characteristic,  that  the  blessing  or  the 
state  of  [restoration  which  is  predicted  belongs  to 
this  earth,  and  that  this  earth  is  the  appointed  scene 
of  it.  The  fundamental  Jewish  prophecy  which  runs 
through  Scripture  and  comes  down  from  Abraham  to 
Isaiah  has  respect  to  this  earth  as  the  locality  of  it. 
The  language  is,  "all  nations,"  "the  earth/'  "the 
land,"  "  the  isles,"  "  the  mountains."  The  earth  shall 
be  full  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Lord  ;  "  they  shall 
inherit  the  land  for  ever  ;  "  "  they  shall  not  hurt  nor 
destroy  in  all  my  holy  mountain."  The  prophetic 
scene  of  a  regenerated,  a  purified,  and  a  happy  earth, 
is  also  the  vision  of  the  Sibyl  :  — 


Kat  Tore  8'  e£eye/3e6  /focri/^i'ov  ets 

CTT  dv0pw7rovs,  aytov  vofjLov  OTTTTOT 


1  6  Abraham. 

Evcr€/?€cri,  rots  Tracrif  vTrecrxcro  ycuav 

Kcu  Koa/xov,  /xaKapwv  re  TrvXas,  /cat  x<W-ara 

Kat  vow  dtfavaroi/,  awonov  tvcfrpocrvvrjv  er. 

8'  €K  yanys  XtySavov  KCU'  Swpa  TT/JOS  OIKOVS 
©eov.1 


The  form  and  mould  of  the  prediction  —  the  beati- 
fication of  this  earth,  as  distinct  from  an  invisible 
world  of  happiness  —  singularly  fits  in  with  the  sim- 
plicity and  primitive  mind  of  early  prophecy  :  with 
that  first  uprising  of  the  prophetical  spirit  in  the 
heart  of  man,  in  the  infancy  and  newness  of  God's 
gift  to  man,  when  he  could  not  yet  distinguish  the 
visible  world  from  the  invisible.  The  look  forward 
to  a  happy  earth,  where  all  would  be  innocence  and 
peace,  to  another  paradise  and  golden  age,  was  the 
bright  anticipation  of  childhood,  when  prophecy,  itself 
true  and  sent  by  God,  was  yet  accommodated  to  the 
vivid  sympathies  of  the  world's  infancy  with  what 
was  tangible  or  visible.  It  was  to  that  age  a  picture 
of  bliss,  which  no  purely  spiritual  world  could  be, 
and  which  imparted  a  sense  of  delight  and  vivid 
hope. 

But  though  a  great  and  fundamental  prophecy 
mounts  up  to  one  common  source,  and  belongs  alike 
to  Jewish  and  Pagan  dispensations,  the  difference  is 
enormous  in  the  way  in  which  prophecy  is  treated, 
and  in  the  account  to  which  it  is  turned,  in  the 
regular  channel,  and  in  the  irregular.  Upon  the 
wild  and  uncultivated  pagan  ground  prophecy  re- 
ceived no  systematic  attention,  and  had  no  regular 

1  Sibyll.  iii.  766. 


Abraham.  17 

home,  no  fitting  receptacle  in  which  to  lodge.  The 
tradition  of  the  Sibyl  points  indeed  to  the  existence 
of  prophetic  minds  in  the  pagan  world,  which  had  in 
dim  vision  before  them  some  great  future  change  in 
the  order  of  things  here  ;  but  nothing  came  of  this 
prophetic  gleam;  it  founded  nothing,  it  erected  no 
institutions,  no  framework,  no  body,  no  Church; 
it  passed  away  and  wandered  into  space,  and 
only  returned  in  desultory  and  dreamy  sounds 
which  interested  but  did  not  rouse  the  mind.  Pro- 
phecy was  a  sweet  but  broken  strain,  whose  notes 
floated  upon  the  air,  only  to  be  scattered  immediately 
by  some  rough  wind;  and  a  transient  and  fitful 
music  only  entranced  the  ear,  to  die  away  in  feeble 
cadences  and  fragments.  Prophecy  was  like  one  of 
those  thoughts  which  just  come  into  the  mind  and 
vanish;  and  we  cannot  catch  it  again,  though  we 
seem  to  be  just  upon  the  track  of  it,  and  the  shadow 
hovers  about  us.  Or  it  was  like  some  early  memory 
or  association,  which  has  visited  us  for  a  moment,  and 
has  gone  away  instantly  and  cannot  be  recalled. 
The  man  who  saw  his  natural  face  in  a  glass,  and 
went  away  and  forgot  what  manner  of  man  he  was, 
was  haunted  indeed  by  the  vague  image  of  somebody 
who  had  been  reflected  in  the  mirror;  but  had  not 
got  that  clear  likeness  of  himself  which  could  make 
him  know  himself;  could  warn,  caution,  instruct,  and 
guard.  Prophecy  thus  under  paganism  never  grew 
into  a  practical  and  directing  power;  and  even  the 
great  Eoman  poet,  captivated  as  he  was  by  its  ancient 

utterance,  and  the  beauty  of  its  promise,  yet  could  do 

c 


1 8  Abraham. 

no  more  with  it  than  convert  it  into  a  court  compli- 
ment, and  connect  its  romantic  associations  with  the 
prospects  of  the  new-born  heir  of  the  Pollios.  But 
as  soon  as  prophecy  found  a  receptacle  in  the  chosen 
race,  it  grew  strong,  it  became  an  architect  and 
builder,  it  raised  institutions,  it  enacted  ordinances. 
In  Abraham  it  founded  a  family,  in  Moses  it  framed 
a  law,  in  David  it  erected  a  kingdom.  The  Jewish 
people  from  the  first  gave  prophecy  a  fixed  home,  and 
the  nation  became  the  regular  and  guarded  deposi- 
tory for  the  sacred  gift.  The  Jewish  Church  was  the 
fort  of  prophecy,  maintaining  and  keeping  up  the 
inspired  expectation,  protecting  it  from  outside  blasts, 
and  surrounding  it  with  institutions  and  schools ;  so 
that,  preserved  as  a  directing  influence  among  them,  it 
prepared  a  practical  reception  for  the  Messiah ;  and 
founded  that  body  of  thought  in  the  nation  which 
welcomed  Him  who  fulfilled  the  promise  when  He 
came,  and  in  that  welcome  founded  the  Christian 
Church.  Prophecy  had  thus  the  most  striking  prac- 
tical result,  and  proved  itself  an  instrument  of  real 
efficiency  and  power. 

In  Abraham  himself  we  see  the  foundation  of  that 
strong  external  structure, — that  law,  that  system,  and 
that  discipline, — which  was  to  act  as  the  depository  of 
the  prophetic  promise ;  we  see  it  in  the  fact  that  he 
founded  a  family,  and  at  the  same  time  bound  that 
family  by  rules,  precepts,  and  regulations  which 
enabled  it  to  preserve  and  hand  down  the  true  faith. 
It  is  worth  observing  that  Scripture  does  not  only 
assign  to  Abraham  the  office  of  a  Patriarch  or  pro- 


Abraham.  19 

genitor  of  a  family,  but  attributes  to  him  remarkable 
qualifications  for  establishing  a  religion  and  securing 
its  continuance  in  that  family.  It  gives  him  a  cha- 
racter somewhat  akin  to  that  of  an  ancient  lawgiver, 
representing  him  as  laying  down  rules  and  imparting 
a  particular  mould  and  type  to  his  family,  providing 
for  its  future  instruction  and  worship,  and  treating  it 
not  merely  as  a  family  but  as  an  institution;  just  as 
the  old  legislator  laid  down  a  plan,  a  method,  and  a 
code  for  the  new  State.  "  Shall  I  hide  from  Abraham 
that  thing  which  I  do ;  seeing  that  Abraham  shall 
surely  become  a  great  and  mighty  nation  ? "  "  For  I 
know  him  that  he  will  command  his  children  and  his 
household  after  him,  and  they  shall  keep  the  way  of 
the  Lord  to  do  justice  and  judgment,  that  the  Lord 
may  bring  upon  Abraham  that  which  He  hath  spoken 
of  him." l  We  ought  not,  certainly,  to  strain  or  exag- 
gerate the  sense  of  any  passage  in  Scripture ;  and  yet, 
when  we  consider  how  much  is  often  contained  in  a 
short  compass  in  Scripture,  and  in  how  simple  a  way 
Scripture  expresses  very  important  events  and  trans- 
actions, it  hardly  appears  too  bold  to  say  that  this 
text  is  a  description  of  more  than  the  head  of  a  family — 
that  it  represents  the  founder  of  a  religious  community, 
whose  future  adherence  to  the  true  faith  he  was 
anxious  to  secure  by  proper  regulations. 

And  here  we  have  the  peculiar  and  special  cha- 
racteristic which  distinguishes  Abraham  as  a  believer, 
from  other  believers  in  the  true  God  who  appear  to 
have  existed  then  in  the  world.  Abraham  was  not, 

Gen.  xviii.  17,  18,  19, 


2O  Abraham. 

it  would  appear,  so  absolutely  solitary  in  his  creed  in 
the  world  at  that  time,  as  that  there  were  literally 
none  beside  himself  and  his  family  who  held  the  same 
belief  in  one  supreme  God.  One  such  believer  we  are 
told  of,  and  him  a  person  of  exalted  station,  one  of  the 
kings  of  the  very  country  in  which  Abraham  sojourned 
— Melchizedek,  king  of  Salem  and  "  priest  of  the  most 
high  God,"  who  received  tithes  from  Abraham,  and 
who  blessed  Abraham  and  said,  "  Blessed  be  Abram 
of  the  most  high  God,  possessor  of  heaven  and  earth."1 
In  this  priestly  office  and  this  blessing  is  contained 
undoubtedly  a  creed,  and  the  true  creed,  and  Melchi- 
zedek is  throughout  adopted  by  Scripture  as  a  true 
believer.  And  if  he  was,  his  very  office  would  indicate 
that  there  were  others  beside  himself  who  believed  in 
the  same  supreme  God,  implying  as  it  does  an  altar, 
sacrifice,  and  public  worship.  And  if  here,  then  else- 
where, believers  in  the  true  God  may  have  existed  in 
the  world,  and  perhaps  each  of  them  may  have  had  his 
own  group  around  him.  Such,  perhaps,  in  a  later  age, 
was  the  situation  of  Jethro;  and  even,  great  as  was  his 
fall  from  this  eminence,  such  may  have  been  the 
position  of  the  prophet  Balaam.  And  in  an  earlier 
age  this  scattering  of  true  belief  amid  the  religious 
corruption  of  the  world  was  the  more  probable,  from 
the  very  circumstance  that  that  corruption  had  not 
then  had  such  time  to  grow  and  consolidate  itself. 

There  were,  therefore,  probably  contemporary  with 
Abraham,  holy  men  in  different  parts,  who  held  the 
same  belief,  and  were  more  or  less  divided  from  the 

1  Gen.  xiv.  18,  19, 


Abraham.  21 

surrounding  mass.  But  these  men,  if  there  were  such, 
would  not  appear  to  have  possessed  the  characteristics 
which  marked  the  great  Patriarch,  and  fitted  him  to 
be  so  singular  and  special  an  instrument  in  the 
hands  of  God  for  establishing  the  true  faith  in  the 
world.  Excepting  from  remark  the  mysterious  per- 
sonage whose  sudden  appearance  upon  the  stage  of 
sacred  history  has  created  such  perplexity  and  awe, 
and  whose  typical  aspect  so  predominates  over  his 
historical ; —  excepting  him,  and  speaking  of  these 
holders  of  the  true  belief  as  a  class,  one  would  suppose 
that  they  were  good  and  holy  men  doubtless,  but  that 
they  were  content  to  believe  what  was  true  themselves, 
without  much  concern  for  the  world  at  large,  or  for 
the  future,  and  without  providing  for  the  security  and 
establishment  of  the  truth.  They  were  men  probably 
who  had  no  thought  beyond  their  own  day,  who  lived 
in  amity  with  surrounding  idolatry  though  differing 
from  it,  made  no  great  protest,  and  stood  upon  an 
ordinary  neighbourly  footing  with  the  world.  Such 
quiet  good  men  are  respected,  but  they  do  not  root  the 
truth  in  the  world ;  what  they  believe  is  apt  to  die 
away  with  them,  and  indeed  they  expect  it  do  so;  they 
have  no  great  confidence  in  the  power  of  truth,  they 
assume  that  error  is  the  normal  condition  of  mankind, 
and  think  it  vain  to  struggle  with  it,  they  leave  men 
alone,  and  are  satisfied  with  saving  their  own  souls. 
Such  men  have  their  own  place  and  use,  and  do  their 
own  work  in  their  day,  but  they  are  not  made  to  be 
instruments  in  the  hands  of  God  for  instituting  a  new 
dispensation  and  founding  a  church.  Abraham  was 


22  Abraham. 

cast  in  a  different  mould.  He  has  the  future  of  the 
world  before  his  mind;  he  looks  upon  "  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth  "  in  connection  with  the  true  faith ;  which 
he  contemplates  as  going  to  take  deep  root,  to  spread, 
and  to  gain  the  allegiance  of  mankind ;  for  the  blessing 
which  they  are  to  receive  through  him  must  involve 
their  reception  of  his  belief  and  hope. 

Such  is  the  man  whom  the  Bible  puts  before  us  in 
Abraham.  The  Patriarch  appears  in  the  page  of  Scrip- 
ture as — although  invested  with  the  warlike  pomp 
and  state  of  a  chieftain  of  that  age — a  solitary;  a 
solitary  in  his  creed;  a  solitary  in  the  extreme  and 
dim  remoteness  of  the  scene  and  object  upon  which  his 
mind  rests.  As  a  believer  he  has  cast  off  the  popular 
religion  and  is  a  witness  against  it ;  as  a  prince  he  is 
a, wanderer  without  alliances  in  a  strange  land;  and 
his  only  compensation  is  that  he  is  enabled  to  live  in 
thought  out  of  the  present  scene  and  circumstances, 
and  to  repose  upon  futurity.  We  are  brought  here 
for  the  first  time  in  contact  with  the  majesty,  the 
strength,  and  the  splendour  of  prophecy  in  the  re- 
ligion of  the  chosen  race.  There  is  nothing  in  the 
history  of  the  character,  the  sentiment,  the  aspirations 
of  nations,  which  is  equal  to,  which  can  for  a  moment 
be  compared  with,  this  mighty  impulse  and  current 
of  faith  in  the  Jewish  community.  Other  nations  had 
their  prophetic  traditions,  their  own  oracular  voices 
borne  along  the  air,  which  pointed  the  way  to  con- 
quest and  empire ;  but  the  objects  to  which  these 
national  vaticinations  looked  were  petty  and  local,  or 
at  any  rate  the  vulgar  prizes  of  territorial  ambitions : 


Abraham.  23 

Jewish  prophecy  had  a  totally  different  goal.  What 
have  we  in  any  heathen  nation's  early  forecast  of 
victory  and  success  at  all  equal  in  force,  in  boldness, 
in  grandeur  of  scope,  to  that  look  into  futurity  given 
to  one,  who,  standing  upon  the  earth,  in  the  very 
morning  of  time,  before  history  had  begun,  and  when 
as  yet  no  people  of  Israel,  no  family  of  Israel,  no 
seed  of  Israel,  were  in  existence,  aged  and  child- 
less, grasped  the  whole  world  as  his  inheritance,  and 
saw  all  the  earth  engrafted  upon  his  own  stock  by 
conversion  to  his  own  faith  ?  What  Koman  antici- 
pation can  compare  not  only  in  sublimity  but  even  in 
extent  and  largeness  with  this  ?  Yet  there  is  the 
prophecy  before  us,  supported  by  the  whole  his- 
tory and  tradition  of  a  nation.  Nor  could  it  be 
otherwise  than  gratuitous  for  even  a  sceptic,  how- 
ever he  may  reject  the  inspiration,  to  deny  that 
this  prophecy  existed,  that  it  was  of  the  nature  here 
described,  and  that  it  dates  from  this  primitive  era. 
Abraham  in  that  early  dawn  of  history,  with  poly- 
theism and  idolatry  all  around  him,  saw  his  own  creed 
triumphant  in  the  world ;  he  predicted  its  triumph, 
and  the  prediction  has  as  a  matter  of  fact  come  true. 
It  is  triumphant.  The  creed  of  Abraham  has  become 
the  creed  of  the  civilised  world.  The  Patriarch's  creed 
has  been  victorious  over  the  idolatry  of  the  human 
race,  and  grown  from  a  deposit  in  the  breast  of  one 
man  into  a  universal  religion.  It  is  this  force  which 
is  characteristic  of  Jewish  prophecy  ;  there  may  be 
true  prophecy  elsewhere  in  the  world,  but  it  is 
weak,  it  is  broken,  and  its  utterance  dies  away  upon 


24  Abraham. 

the  ear,  and  is  scattered  to  the  winds ;  in  the  Jewish 
channel  it  is  strong,  compact,  and  consistent ;  it  has 
a  fixed  and  confident  hold  upon  the  future,  a  grasp  of 
forecast,  and  a  practical  evergazing  assurance ;  it  pro- 
vided from  the  first  for  its  own  transmission,  created 
laws  and  institutions,  and  made  a  prophetical  nation. 
The  question  may  be  asked,  Why  did  not  Abraham 
preach  the  true  faith,  and  convert  the  nations  around 
him  ?  but  the  truth  is  that  the  time  had  not  come  for 
that  form  of  apostleship.  The  missionary  belongs 
essentially  to  a  body  of  believers,  out  of  which  he  is 
sent,  and  upon  which  he  rests  as  his  support  and  stay 
in  the  background,  throughout  his  labours,  however 
far  they  carry  him  from  home;  as  a  general  rests 
upon  his  base  of  operations  in  war.  But  the  body 
of  the  faithful,  or  the  Church,  had  not  been  formed 
in  the  Patriarchal  age,  and  the  formation  of  it  took 
many  ages.  Abraham  belonged  to  no  Church  outside 
of  himself ;  he  was  himself  the  Church,  which  at  that 
stage  of  the  Divine  dispensation  resided  in  an  indi- 
vidual and  a  solitary.  In  the  order  of  Providence  the 
Patriarch  precedes  the  Apostle.  The  mode  of  prosely- 
tising proper  to  a  beginning  of  things  is  the  founda- 
tion of  a  nation  :  the  nation  once  made  is  a  church, 
and  acts  upon  the  world  by  becoming  the  background 
of  individual  exertions.  The  Apostle  was  backed  by 
"  the  true  Israel,"  but  the  Patriarch  himself  did  not 
belong  to  a  body,  but  was  himself  the  germ  of  that 
body.  The  early  and  Patriarchal  thus  singularly  con- 
trasts with  the  later  and  Evangelical  form  of  apostleship. 
The  evangelical  Apostle,  or  disseminator  of  the  true 


Abraham.  25 

faith  in  the  world,  is  a  missionary  and  preacher  :  the 
Patriarch  had  that  office  also  to  fulfil  to  the  faith,  but 
he  fulfilled  it  by  founding  a  family  and  a  law  :  and 
that  which  the  later  Apostle  proclaimed  by  word  of 
mouth  to  all  the  world,  he  handed  down  to  a  line  of 
posterity.  In  being  the  progenitor  of  a  nation,  he 
was  also  the  transmitter  of  a  creed.  The  descent  of 
blood  is  the  descent  of  faith  too  :  father  teaching  son, 
and  each  succeeding  generation  imbibing  the  truth 
from  its  predecessor.  The  Patriarch  then,  as  the  fore- 
father of  a  great  nation,  was  also  the  apostle  of  that 
nation.  His  greatness  was  not  that  of  an  ancestor 
only,  glorying  in  his  posterity,  but  also  that  of  a 
teacher  impressing  his  own  type  upon  a  school. 

With  the  strong  foresight  of  a  great  future  for  the 
world,  we  note  in  the  Patriarch  the  foresight  too  of 
his  own  posthumous  greatness.  A  chieftain  only  of  an 
average  station,  and  barely  admitted  to  a  level  with 
the  petty  monarchs  around  him,  he  has  only  to 
throw  his  eye  forward  into  time,  and  he  sees  himself 
in  his  true  rank  and  position.  He  sees  a  representa- 
tion and  impersonation  of  himself  in  a  mighty  nation 
of  which  he  is  the  founder;  he  is  prospectively  the 
head  of  this  nation ;  it  looks  back  to  him  through  all 
ages  as  the  man  to  whom  it  first  owes  its  existence, 
the  original  architect  of  the  fabric,  the  root  of  the 
magnificent  tree  which  spreads  its  branches  so  wide. 
He  lives  in  this  nation,  he  reigns  in  its  continuance 
and  growth,  and  its  greatness  is  his  greatness.  He 
may  not  raise  his  head  high  at  present  then,  and  the 
kings  of  the  country  may  hold  themselves  above  him ; 


26  Abraham. 

but  he  knows  that  his  day  will  come,  and  that  he 
leaves  behind  him  a  seed  of  power  which  will  fill  the 
earth,  and  cast  all  contemporary  rule  into  the  shade. 
"  A  father  of  many  nations  have  I  made  thee, — and 
kings  shall  come  out  of  thee."  Nor  will  this  nation 
be  a  single  power  only;  it  will  be  the  nucleus  in 
some  sense  of  an  universal  power,  and  "all  the 
families  of  the  earth "  will  gather  around  it.  He 
sees  predestined  for  him,  and  inscribed  on  the  roll  of 
Providence,  a  name  which  will  literally  be  everlasting 
and  universal.  Before  the  great  Patriarch  in  his  soli- 
tary wanderings, — a  sojourner  and  a  pilgrim,  moving 
his  tents  from  place  to  place  in  a  strange  land, — 
a  boundless  prospect  arose,  which  we  cannot  reduce 
to  any  geographical  measurement.  It  is  true,  the 
known  world  of  that  day  was  a  small  one  compared 
with  ours ;  the  populated  earth  of  the  Patriarch  had 
a  circumference  of  cloud  and  darkness,  and  was 
bounded  by  a  terra  incognita  where  no  traveller's 
foot  had  ever  trod ;  but  the  magnitude  of  an  idea  in 
the  mind  of  man  must  not  be  measured  by  the 
material  extent  and  number  of  that  which  raises  it. 
How  petty  in  actual  geographical  size  were  the  States 
of  ancient  Greece,;  yet  the  wars  of  those  States 
excited  in  the  Greek  all  the  sense  of  grandeur  and  of 
triumph  which  the  most  gigantic  European  contest 
has  done  in  modern  nations ;  and  the  breast  of  an 
Athenian  or  Spartan  statesman  or  soldier  swelled  with 
as  strong  an  emotion  when  a  victory  was  gained  in  a 
battle  where  neither  of  the  armies  equalled  a  modern 
regiment,  as  a  modern  feels  when  one  half  of  Europe 


Abraham.  27 

conquers  the  other  in  the  field.  So  little  can  we  tie  the 
force  and  largeness  of  ideas  in  the  human  mind,  to 
the  actual  proportions  of  the  material  facts  which 
serve  as  the  occasion  of  them.  This  mountain  which 
towers  to  heaven  before  our  eyes  does  not  produce  the 
sense  of  height  and  grandeur  which  impresses  us,  in 
exact  proportion  to  the  number  of  perpendicular  feet ; 
the  imagination  of  the  spectator  gives  it  height,  as 
sure  as  there  is  enough  material  altitude  to  stimulate 
it ;  and  no  member  of  the  Alpine  range  or  the  chain 
of  the  Andes  could  look  higher  than  it  does. 

There  never  was  a  day  since  there  were  nations 
upon  the  earth,  when  "  all  the  nations  of  the  earth " 
did  not  present  an  overwhelming  image  to  the  human 
mind.  That  "  all "  was  a  vast  inconceivable  "  all ; "  it 
was  that  which  no  man  could  describe  or  calculate ; 
it  was  countless  number,  limitless  space.  The  whole 
-the  world  was  an  infinity;  no  thought  could 
embrace  the  fact  or  do  more  than  put  a  symbol  or 
counter  for  it.  "  Look  now  toward  heaven,  and  tell 
the  stars,  if  thou  be  able  to  number  them :  and  He 
said  unto  him,  So  shall  thy  seed  be."  *  The  Patriarch 
saw  that  his  work  would  live — the  work  he  had  done 
in  the  world.  So,  to  take  another  kind  of  work  of  a 
life,  has  a  great  poet  prophesied  the  immortality  of 
his  work. 

But  though  a  great  posthumous  name  is  certainly  ap- 
pealed to  in  the  Divine  communications  to  the  Patriarch, 
and  though  it  is  certainly  intended  that  that  grand  pro- 
spect should  nerve  him  to  his  work — "  I  will  make 

1  Gen.  xv.  5. 


28  Abraham. 

thy  name  great " — this  is  still  a  motive  which  suits  an 
earlier  dispensation  better  than  a  later  one.  The 
future  actual  existence  of  himself,  where  it  is  defi- 
nitely and  distinctly  grasped,  must  throw  into  the 
shade  the  existence  of  his  name.  His  name  is  not 
himself ;  his  name  is  only  a  reflection  thrown  off  from 
himself.  Himself,  and  what  happens  to  himself,  must 
be  the  important  consideration  to  himself.  His  real 
immortality  lies  in  the  perpetuity  of  himself,  not  in 
that  of  his  name,  which  cannot  do  him  the  slightest 
good  where  he  does  not  exist,  if  he  will  not  then 
exist.  The  question  what  is  to  become  of  the  shadow 
of  himself  left  in  this  world  must  pale  in  interest, 
in  proportion  as  his  own  real  future  existence  is 
embraced.  The  motive  of  a  posthumous  reputation, 
then,  is  not  a  Gospel  motive,  because  the  Gospel 
is  the  tidings  of  real  immortality,  and  that  is  its 
special  appeal  to  man ;  whereas  the  desire  for  posthu- 
mous fame  has  nothing  to  do  with  a  real  immor- 
tality. A  man  who  has  no  notion  but  that  his 
existence  totally  ends  at  death,  can  still  derive 
pleasure  from  the  anticipation  of  his  fame  after 
death;  and  can  enjoy  now  the  foresight  of  a  fact, 
which  fact  itself  he  will  not  exist  then  to  enjoy,  be- 
cause that  future  fact  is  a  proof  of  present  success. 
It  is  indeed  simply  blind  confusion,  an  hallucination 
of  the  reason,  to  mix  up  these  two  absolutely  distinct 
desires;  to  identify  the  immortality  of  a  name  with 
the  immortality  of  a  person ;  yet  a  debasing  stupor 
and  disorder  of  the  intellect  does  prevail  in  this 
respect.  Men,  under  the  notion  of  a  name,  throw 


Abraham.  29 

forward  a  false  earthly  existence  beyond  the  grave, 
which  satisfies  them ;  they  imagine  themselves  now 
enjoying  this  posthumous  name  then  when  it  is 
posthumous ;  or,  in  other  words,  conceive  themselves 
as  dead  and  alive  at  the  same  time.  Cannot  reason 
break  this  iron  yoke  of  illusion  ?  She  can  if  she  is 
asked  to  do  so,  but  they  do  not  ask  her,  and  would 
rather  their  sleep  was  not  broken  or  their  mist  dispelled. 
But  though  the  desire  for  posthumous  fame  is  not 
a  motive  of  Gospel  source,  it  is  one  of  those  motives  of 
nature  which  the  Gospel  does  not  forbid  in  its  proper 
place.  The  Gospel  is  not  at  war  with  a  natural  instinct 
of  the  heart :  it  only  condemns  a  gross  misconception 
about  posthumous  greatness — the  confounding  it  with  a 
real  future  life — the  selfish  and  unnatural  dream  of  men 
who  grasp  at  it  as  if  they  were  really  going  to  enjoy 
it,  and  to  enjoy  it  when  it  is  posthumous.1  But  let 
this  blind  confusion  about  it  be  cleared,  and  let  the 
thing  stand  for  what  it  is  and  nothing  more;  and 
Christianity  does  not  forbid  a  satisfaction  being  de- 
rived from  the  anticipation  of  it.  The  accomplisher 
of  a  great  work  has  a  legitimate  pleasure  in  that  work, 
in  himself  being  the  doer  of  it,  and  in  the  knowledge 
of  that  circumstance  by  others.  And  why  should  not 

i  "  Sed  nescio  quomodo,  animus  erigens  se,  posteritatem  semper  ita 
prospiciebat,  quasi,  cum  excessisset  e  vita,  turn  denique  victurus  esset." 
— Cicero,  De  Senectute,  xxiii.  82. 

"  Sed  cum  illi  essent  in  civitate  terrena,  quibus  propositus  erat 
omnium  pro  ilia  officiorum  finis,  incolumitas  ejus,  et  regnum  non  in  cselo 
sed  in  terra  ;  non  in  vita  seterna,  sed  in  decessione  morientium  et  suc- 
cessione  moriturorum  :  quid  aliud  amarent  quam  gloriam,  qua  volebant 
etiam  post  mortem  tanquam  vivere  in  ore  laudantium  ?  " — Aug.  De  Givit. 
Dei,  lib.  v.  14. 


3O  Abraham* 

posterity  be  among  those  others  ?  But  a  religious  man, 
if  lie  foresees  this  posthumous  name,  sees  also  a  chasm 
which  separates  this  name  from  himself,  and  with- 
draws it  from  him  as  a  selfish  prize.  A  shadow  rests 
upon  it  which  precludes  vulgar  pride  and  self-con- 
gratulation. The  Patriarch  saw  himself  emerge  out  of 
a  whole  contemporary  world  after  death ;  but  such  an 
ascent,  which  stands  in  contrast  with  present  depres- 
sion, is,  although  an  elevating  and  inspiriting  reflec- 
tion, a  mortifying  and  chastening  one  as  well;  the 
good  is  not  grasped,  is  not  fastened  on,  is  not  enjoyed 
tangibly;  it  is  a  vision,  a  prophecy,  an  immaterial 
form  of  greatness,  the  shadow  of  a  substance  which 
has  never  been  possessed,  the  symbol  of  a  deprivation, 
and  a  memento  of  mortality. 


LECTURE  II. 

THE  SACRIFICE  OF  ISAAC. 

TT7HEN  objections  are  raised  against  various  actions 
and  courses  of  action  represented  as  done  and 
carried  on  by  Divine  command  in  the  Old  Testament, 
which  involved  a  summary  mode  of  dealing  with 
human  life,  the  answer  is  made,  that  God  is  the  Lord 
of  life,  the  right  to  which  ceases  as  soon  as  evidence 
exists  of  a  Divine  command  to  deprive  men  of  it.  "  If 
it  were  commanded,"  says  Butler,  "  to  cultivate  the 
principles,  and  act  from  the  spirit  of  treachery,  in- 
gratitude, cruelty ;  the  command  would  not  alter  the 
nature  of  the  case,  or  the  action,  in  any  of  these  in- 
stances. But  it  is  quite  otherwise  in  precepts  which 
require  only  the  doing  an  external  action;  for  instance, 
taking  away  the  property  or  life  of  another.  For 
men  have  no  right  to  either  life  or  •  property  but 
what  arises  solely  from  the  grant  of  God.  When  this 
grant  is  revoked,  they  cease  to  have  any  right  at  all 
in  either  :  and  when  this  revocation  is  made  known, 
as  surely  it  is  possible  it  may  be,  it  must  cease  to 
be  unjust  to  deprive  them  of  either."1 

This  defence  then  is  undoubtedly,  as  a  general  and 
abstract  statement,  true  and  complete ;  nor  is  there 

1  Analogy,  part  ii.  chap.  iii. 


32  The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac. 

anything  wanting  to  it,  or  that  need  be  added  to  it,  as 
an  abstract  position.  It  is  unquestionable  that  if  a 
command  of  God  to  kill  even  an  innocent  person  is 
made  known  to  us,  we  have  not  only  the  right,  but 
are  under  the  strictest  moral  obligation  to  kill  that 
person.  But  though  a  true  and  perfect  defence  in  the 
abstract,  it  leaves  out  one  important  point  which  ought 
to  be  supplied  before  the  general  defensive  statement 
is  applied  to  a  particular  case — the  point,  viz.,  how 
the  Divine  command  to  perform  such  an  action  is 
made  known  to  the  person  to  whom  it  is  asserted 
in  Scripture  to  be  made  known.  That  is  a  question 
which  it  is  essential  to  answer  before  the  individual  can 
be  pronounced  to  have  been  justified  in  performing  the 
act.  Undoubtedly  the  right  of  man  to  live  ceases  as 
soon  as  ever  evidence  arises  of  a  Divine  command 
to  deprive  him  of  it ;  but  when  does  such  evidence 
arise  ? 

The  answer  then  which  is  given  to  this  question  is 
that  the  evidence  arose  by  means  of  a  miraculous  mani- 
festation through  which  the  Will  of  God  was  declared, 
that  these  actions  should  be  done.  And  this  is  a  true 
and  correct  answer.  But  it  still  has  to  be  accounted 
for,  how  a  miracle  at  that  day  was  the  evidence  which 
it  was  of  such  a  Divine  command.  Supposing  at  the 
present  day,  and  under  the  present  dispensation,  a 
miracle  were  wrought  in  evidence  of  an  alleged  com- 
mand of  God  to  any  man  to  kill  an  innocent  son, 
would  such  a  miracle  be  regarded  as  sufficient  evidence 
of  such  a  command  ?  It  cannot  with  any  truth  be 
asserted  that  it  would.  The  Christian  Church  would 


The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac.  33 

obviously  condemn  the  act,  and  would  refuse  to 
pronounce  a  miracle  to  be  sufficient  justification  of  it. 

The  question  of  the  tightness  or  wrongness  of  this 
class  of  actions  belongs  indeed  to  the  great  religious 
question  of  the  warranting  power  of  miracles,  and  the 
conditions  of  miraculous  evidence. 

When  we  go  then  to  the  Scripture  doctrine  of 
miracles  and  of  the  evidence  rising  from  miracles,  we 
find,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  general  rule  laid  down 
is,  that  miracles  are  evidence  of  the  Divine  will ;  and 
that  a  command  which  has  the  warrant  of  a  miracle 
is  to  be  regarded  as  coming  'from  God.  This  is  the 
law  relating  to  this  subject  which  Scripture  both 
expresses  in  words,  and  assumes  and  supposes  in  its 
historical  account  of  the  courses  of  events,  and  of 
Divine  Providence.  But  when  we  enter  further  into 
the  teaching  of  Scripture  on  this  subject,  we  discover 
that,  together  with  this  general  rule  respecting  miracles, 
there  is  a  collateral  principle  inculcated ;  viz.,  that  a 
miracle  may  be  permitted  by  God  for  the  purpose  of 
trial.  Where,  then,  the  authority  of  a  miracle  contra- 
dicts any  clear  knowledge  we  have  of  the  Divine  will, 
any  instructions  from  antecedent  sources,  this  is  the 
interpretation  of  it  which  Scripture  enjoins  upon  us. 
We  are  warned  that  the  miracle  does  not  in  such 
cases  bear  its  primary  and  more  natural  interpretation 
as  an  evidence  of  the  Divine  will,  but  the  secondary 
interpretation  of  it  as  a  trial  of  moral  strength  in  resist- 
ing that  apparent  evidence, — of  the  moment  and  from 
without, — in  favour  of  a  more  real  evidence  of  His  will 

which  we  have  from  antecedent  sources  or  from  within. 

D 


34  Tke  Sacrifice  of  Isaac. 

Thus  it  is  laid  down  in  the  Old  Testament  that  a  miracle 
cannot  authorise  an  act  of  idolatry ;  and  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament that  a  miracle  cannot  authorise  the  acceptance  of 
any  doctrine  manifestly  opposed  to  the  Gospel  revela- 
tion. In  such  cases  we  are  plainly  told  that  the  purpose 
of  the  miracle  is  not  evidence  but  trial ;  that  it  is  in- 
tended to  test  our  faith ;  to  prove  us,  whether  we  give 
way  to  the  more  tangible  and  external  kind  of  appeal 
against  a  deep  inward  persuasion  of  a  moral  and  reli- 
gious kind,  or  whether  we  adhere  loyally  to  the  inner 
law  in  spite  of  the  outer  pretension  of  authority.  A 
miracle  is  thus  not  represented  in  Scripture  as  absolutely 
and  of  itself  evidence  of  a  Divine  command  :  rather  it  is 
expressly  represented  as  not  being.  We  find  that  it  lies 
under  conditions  ;  that  it  is  limited  by  our  own  know- 
ledge gained  from  other  and  prior  sources  of  the  Divine 
will ;  that  it  is  checked  by  the  internal  evidence  of 
moral  and  religious  truths, — whether  principles  of  belief, 
or  rules  of  conduct, — which,  either  express  revelation, 
or  God's  natural  enlightening  Providence  has  imparted 
to  us.  The  Scriptural  check,  e.g.,  would  be  the  same 
against  a  miracle  on  the  side  of  idolatry,  whether  we 
supposed  the  unity  of  God  to  have  been  arrived  at  by 
natural  reason  or  by  special  revelation.  The  rule  of 
Scripture  in  substance  is  that  no  great  moral  or  reli- 
gious principle  or  law  of  conduct  of  which  we  are 
practically,  upon  general  antecedent  grounds,  certain, 
can  be  upset  even  by  a  real  miracle ;  but  that  when  the 
two  come  into  collision  as  evidence,  the  miracle  must 
give  way  and  the  moral  conviction  stand  ;  that  no 
miracle,  in  short,  can  outweigh  a  plain  duty ;  and  that 


The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac.  3  5 

a  real  miracle  might  be  wrought,  and  yet  it  would  be 
wrong  to  do  the  act  which  the  miracle  enjoined. 

If,  then,  a  certain  class  of  Divine  commands  which 
were  proved  by  miracles  in  one  age  of  mankind  could 
not  be  proved  by  the  same  evidence  now,  this  must 
arise  in  consequence  of  some  difference  in  the  con- 
ceptions of  mankind  in  former  ages  and  in  our  own, 
in  consequence  of  which  such  commands  were  suitable 
to  an  earlier  period  of  the  world  and  not  to  a  later, 
and  were  adapted  for  proof  by  miracles  then,  and  are 
not  adapted  for  that  mode  of  proof  now.  If,  e.y.,  a 
miracle  was  in  a  former  age  sufficient  evidence  of  a 
Divine  command  to  destroy  life,  and  now  it  is  not,  it 
must  be  that  we  are  now  possessed  with  a  principle 
in  such  strong  disagreement  with  homicide,  that  the 
alternative  of  the  miracle  being  only  permitted  as  a 
trial  necessarily  becomes  more  reasonable  now  than 
that  of  its  being  proof  of  a  command ;  whereas  this 
principle  did  not  exist  in  equal  force  and  strength  in 
the  mind  of  a  former  age,  and  therefore  the  miracle 
was  taken  in  its  more  obvious  meaning  as  proof  of  a 
Divine  commandment.  It  must  be,  in  short,  that  the 
command  was  accommodated  to  the  age  in  which  it  was 
given,  and  was  therefore  adapted  to  be,  proved  by  a 
miracle ;  whereas  now  such  a  command  would  be  in 
opposition  to  a  higher  law  and  general  enlightenment, 
that  would  resist  the  authority  of  the  miracle  :  which 
mode  of  proof  would  consequently  be  unfitted  for  it. 

To  kill  another,  even  an  innocent  man,  is  so  far 
indeed  from  being  itself  contrary  to  morality,  that 
nothing  can  be  more  certain  than  if  it  were  known 


36  The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac. 

that  God  ordered  us  to  take   away  the  life  of  an 
innocent  man,  it  would  be  strictly  obligatory  upon  us 
to  do  so.     But  though  this  is  undoubtedly  true  in 
speculation  and  as  a  supposition,  yet  in  practice  the 
rights  of  human  life  are  so  strongly  felt  now,  they  are 
so  intimate  a  part  of  the  moral  progress  of  mankind, 
and  the  responsibility  of  violating  them  is  so  tre- 
mendous, that   no   miracle  could  practically  act  as 
sufficient  evidence  to  warrant  the  infraction  of  them, 
and  the  destruction  of  the  life  of  an  innocent  person. 
Because  a  miracle  is,  by  the  express  law  of  Scripture, 
always  subject  to  the  possibility  that  it  may  be  sent 
for  our  trial  in  resisting,  instead  of  our  faith  in  obeying 
it.     But  if  there  is  any  case  in  the  world  in  which 
this  condition  would  operate,  it  is  in  the  case  of  a 
supposed  miraculous  command  to  take  away  the  life 
of  an  innocent  man.     Although  therefore  in  theory 
the  Divine  command  to   kill  him,   supposed   to   be 
known,  would  be  strictly  obligatory,  nor  would  the 
innocence  of  the  man  be  any  contradiction  to  it,  yet 
in  practice  the  difficulty  is  so  great  of  its  becoming 
known,  that   such   a   command   would   be   virtually 
nugatory ;  a  miracle  could  be  the  only  evidence  of  it, 
and  that,  by  the  law  of  Scripture,  has  been  disabled 
to  act  as  evidence.    The  act  of  killing  another,  as  being 
simply  an  external  act,  is  not,  indeed,  in  any  contra- 
diction whatever  to  a  right  state  of  the  affections,  but 
the  act  itself  does  not  the  less  require  justification  ;  a 
Divine  command  alone  can  be  that  justification  ;  and 
no  evidence  under  the  circumstances  can  be  given  of 
a  Divine  command. 


The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac.  37 

\ 
What  was  the  difference  then  in  the  conceptions  of 

mankind  in  a  former  age,  compared  with  the  present, 
which  renders  a  miracle  evidence  of  Divine  command 
to  kill  then,  whereas  it  could  not  be  such  evidence  now  ? 
When  we  examine  the  ancient  mind  all  the  world 
over,  one  very  remarkable  want  is  apparent  in  it,  viz. 
a  true  idea  of  the  individuality  of  man ;  an  ade- 
quate conception  of  him  as  an  independent  person,— 
a  substantial  being  in  himself,  whose  life  and  existence 
was  his  own.  Man  always  figures  as  an  appendage  to 
somebody — the  subject  to  the  monarch,  the  son  to 
the  father,  the  wife  to  the  husband,  the  slave  to  the 
master.  He  is  the  function  or  circumstance  of  some- 
body else.  The  slave  was  a  piece  of  property — KTrj^a 
fyAJruxov,  and  the  old  Hindu  law  divided  "  cattle  into 
bipeds  and  quadrupeds."  The  laws  of  Manu  insert 
the  persons  of  the  wife  and  the  son  in  the  person  of 
the  head  of  the  family,  as  if  they  were  absorbed  and 
incorporated  in  it,  just  as  the  several  members  are 
absorbed  and  embraced  in  the  unity  of  the  body. 
"  A  man  is  perfect  when  he  consists  of  himself,  his 
wife,  and  his  son."1  Their  property  belongs  to  the 
man,  because  "they  belong  to  him,"2  upon  which 
ground  he  could  sell  or  give  away  his  son  for  a  slave. 
Stories  from  the  Brahmanas  show  that  an  Aryan 
father  had  power  of  life  and  death  over  a  son.3 
Oriental  civil  law  formally  recognised  the  judicial 
principle  of  extending  the  parent's  guilt  and  punish- 
ment to  the  children,  which  it  could  have  done  only 

1  Sir  W.  Jones,  vol.  viii.  p.  8.  *  Ibid.,  p.  398. 

3  Max  Miiller's  History  of  Sanscrit  Literature,  p.  408. 


3  8  The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac. 

under  a  defective  idea  of  the  child's  individuality, 
treating  the  child  as  a  mere  appendage  of  the  father. 
In  a  public  execution  the  criminal's  whole  family  was 
punished  by  the  same  judicial  sword  which  inflicted 
death  upon  himself :  nor  was  this  done  upon  the 
ground  of  any  special  command  from  an  avenging 
deity,  which  indeed  was  not  needed  for  it,  but  only 
as  an  exercise  of  the  simple  right  of  civil  justice — a 
right  not  indeed  always  acted  upon,  but  still  rooted 
in  law,  and  ready  for  use  whenever  the  civil  authority 
thought  fit  to  fall  back  upon  it. 

We  see,  indeed,  both  in  the  political  institutions 
and  superstitions  of  antiquity,  regulations  and  practices 
which  obviously  imply,  as  the  necessary  condition  of 
their  existence,  a  totally  different  idea  of  human  indi- 
viduality, and  of  human  rights,  from  that  with  which 
modern  society  and  Christian  society  is  animated. 
"We  find  that  this  State  and  that  that  State  had  what 
appear  to  us  most  extraordinary,  most  eccentric  and 
anomalous  laws,  in  the  sphere  of  human  rights  ;  radi- 
cally, as  it  seems  to  us,  clashing  with  those  rights. 
We  are  at  first  disposed  to  lay  the  blame  entirely 
upon  the  particular  states  and  lawgivers.  But  when 
we  see  one  state  after  another  involved  in  the  charge, 
it  gradually  becomes  clear  to  us,  that  though  par- 
ticular states  may  have  got  out  of  an  acknowledged 
principle  stronger  and  rougher  consequences  and 
worked  it  to  a  harsher  issue  than  others  did,  there 
must  have  been  some  universal  defective  conception 
of  human  rights  in  those  ages,  to  have  made  these 
particular  laws  and  customs  of  certain  states  pos- 


The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac.  39 

sible.  A  lawgiver  cannot  act  against  the  universal 
opinion  of  mankind  in  his  day;  if  he  institutes 
any  particular  infringement  of  human  rights,  there 
must  be  a  premiss  for  that  infringement  in  a  uni- 
versal defective  conception  of  mankind  at  that  day. 
Thus  the  law  of  Lycurgus  for  the  destruction  of 
weakly  infants  in  Sparta  at  the  very  birth,  would 
have  been  impossible  had  there  not  been  all  over  the 
world  then  a  very  different  conception  of  the  right  of 
the  human  being  with  respect  to  his  own  life  than 
what  exists  now.  With  us  the  rights  of  man  com- 
mence with  his  very  birth;  and  an  infant  an  hour  old 
has  an  independent  right  and  property  in  his  own  life, 
which  the  whole  world  cannot  take  away  from  him. 
Had  that  been  the  received  idea  in  the  age  of 
Lycurgus,  he  could  not  have  founded  this  Spartan 
rule ;  but  it  was  not.  Mankind  had  not  embraced  as 
yet  the  true  notion  of  human  individuality ;  man  was 
an  appendage  to  some  man  or  some  body.  That  the 
infant  was  treated  as  the  pure  property  of  the  state 
in  Sparta,  was  a  result  which  rose  upon  an  universal 
defective  assumption  regarding  man  in  that  stage  of 
human  progress  ;  it  was  a  harsh  and  cruel  use  of  that 
assumption,  but  it  could  not  have  arisen  without  that 
assumption  as  its  condition. 

This  great  defect  of  conception  was  indeed  deeply 
fixed  in  the  Eoman  law.  As  a  code  for  the  regula- 
tion of  property,  the  Eoman  law  commands  our 
admiration;  its  assumptions,  its  distinctions,  its 
fictions,  are  of  the  highest  legal  merit ;  its  whole 
structure  was  based  upon  nature  and  common  sense, 


40  The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac. 

and   it   carried  into  the  most   intricate  details  and 
applications    an    instinctive   standard   of   equity,    of 
which  it  never  lost  sight.     The  contrast  therefore  is 
all  the  greater  when  from  the  regulation  of  property 
we  turn  to  its  dealings  with  persons.     In  the  former 
we  have  an  anticipation  of  modern  civilisation,  and 
we   feel   ourselves  amid  modern  ideas,  and   in   the 
atmosphere  of  our  own  courts.     In  the  latter  we  are 
consigned  to  barbarism  again.     The  criminal  law  of 
Eome  took  low  ground  in  its  estimate  of  a  large  class 
of  crimes,  which  it  treated  as  civil  wrongs  only ;  but 
its  great  blot  was  the  domestic  code.     The  son  was 
the  property  of  the  father,  without  rights,  without 
substantial  being,  in  the  eye  of  Eoman  law.      The 
father  had  the  power  of  life  and  death  over  him  ;  was 
the  proprietor  of  all  the  wealth  he  acquired.     The 
wife,  again,  was  the  property  of  her  husband,  an  owner- 
ship of  which  the  moral  result  was  most  disastrous. 
The  Eoman  ladies,  as  the  arts  and  refinements  of  life 
advanced,  disdained  the  harsh  yoke  of  true  matrimony, 
—not  only  did  the  sacramental  ceremony  of  the  con- 
farreatio  fall  almost  entirely  into  disuse,  but  even  the 
stricter  civil  marriage,  the  conventio,wa,$  neglected;  and 
in  its  place  was  substituted  a  contract  which  left  either 
party  the  liberty  to  dissolve  the  connection  at  will,  out 
of  which  arose  the  matrimonial  picture  of  Juvenal— 

Fiunt  octo  mariti 
Quinque  per  autumnos.1 

The  same  defective  idea  of  human  individuality 
and  the  rights  of  life  is  shown  in  a  very  different 

1  Satire  vi.  228. 


The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac.  41 

fact,  which  has  a  horrible  prominence  in  the  history 
of  ancient  religions,  viz.  the  prevalence  of  human 
sacrifice.  It  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  any  super- 
stition, however  strong,  could  have  so  trampled  upon 
the  natural  right  of  life,  as  the  custom  of  human 
sacrifice  did,  had  there  been  at  the  time  that  idea  of 
the  natural  right  of  life  existing  in  the  human  mind  ; 
that  is  to  say,  if  that  idea  had  existed  in  any  definite 
shape.  The  very  selfishness  of  man,  and  the  very 
instinct  of  self-preservation,  would  in  that  case  have 
made  him  stand  up  for  his  own  life,  against  the  claims 
of  a  monstrous  and  cruel  power.  If  we  suppose  such 
a  strict  and  accurate  sense  of  the  right  of  the  indi- 
vidual to  his  own  life  as  we  have  now^,  no  superstition 
however  ferocious  could  possibly  have  had  force  enough 
to  withstand  that  sense,  and  sacrifice  individuals 
wholesale.  There  could  not  therefore  have  been  then 
that  strict  sense  of  the  right  and  property  of  the  in- 
dividual in  his  own  life  that  there  is  now ;  and  the 
institution  of  human  sacrifice  thus  implied  as  the 
condition  of  its  own  establishment  the  defective  idea 
of  the  rights  of  the  individual  man. 

With  these  facts  before  us,  we  may  understand 
how  deeply  fixed  in  the  mind  of  ancient  society  was 
the  idea  of  one  man  belonging  to  another ;  how  long  a 
time  it  must  have  required  to  uproot  that  idea,  and 
how  in  truth  nothing  but  a  new  religion  could  do  it. 
Even  Eome,  with  all  her  later  material  civilisation, 
could  never  completely  embrace  the  notion,  which  lies 
at  the  bottom  of  all  modern  law  and  religion,  that 
every  man  is  himself,  an  individual  being  with  an  in- 


42  The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac. 

dependent  existence  of  his  own  and  independent  rights. 
The^s  naturale  of  the  individual  is  indeed  so  self- 
evident  now,  that  we  can  hardly  conceive  society  with- 
out it ;  and  we  are  apt  to  suppose  that  it  must  have 
been  equally  self-evident  to  any  human  being,  in  any 
age,  who  had  the  simple  exercise  of  his  reason.  But 
all  history  shows  that,  so  far  from  this  idea  having  been 
always  obvious  to  the  human  understanding,  it  has  on 
the  contrary  been  the  slow  and  gradual  growth  of  ages. 
Nor  perhaps  is  the  consideration  valueless,  that  in  the 
early  stages  of  society,  before  civil  government  was 
formed,  and  before  man  had  become  a  trained  and  dis- 
ciplined being,  as  in  a  degree  he  is  now,  some  strong 
idea  such  as  that  which  is  contained  in  saying — You 
belong  to  another,  you  are  the  property  of  another,— 
may  have  been  necessary  to  control  and  keep  in  bounds 
the  native  insolence  and  wild  pride,  the  obstinacy,  the 
fierceness,  the  animal  caprice,  the  rage,  the  spite,  the 
passion  of  the  human  creature.  When  man  was  rude 
and  government  was  weak,  there  was  wanted  for  the 
control  of  man  some  idea  which  could  fasten  upon 
him  and  overcome  him,  and  be  in  the  stead  of  govern- 
ment and  civilisation.  Such  an  idea  was  this  one. 
The  nature  that  can  be  coerced  by  nothing  else  can 
be  tamed  by  an  idea.  Instil  from  his  earliest  infancy 
into  man  the  idea  that  he  belongs  to  another,  is  the 
property  of  another,  let  everything  around  proceed 
upon  this  idea,  let  there  be  nothing  to  interfere  with 
it  or  rouse  suspicions  in  his  mind  to  the  contrary,  and 
he  will  yield  entirely  to  that  idea.  He  will  take  his 
own  deprivation  of  right,  the  necessity  of  his  own 


The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac.  43 

subservience  to  another,  as  a  matter  of  course.  And 
that  idea  of  himself  will  keep  him  in  order.  He  will 
grow  up  with  the  impression  that  he  has  not  the  right 
of  ownership  in  himself; — in  his  passions,  any  more 
than  he  has  in  his  work.  He  will  thus  be  coerced  from 
within  himself,  but  not  by  himself;  i.e.,  not  by  an 
active  faculty  of  self-command,  but  by  the  passive  re- 
ception of  an  instilled  notion  which  he  has  admitted 
into  his  own  mind,  and  which  has  fastened  upon  him 
so  strongly  that  he  cannot  shake  it  off. 

Do  we  not  feel  that  we  are  apt  to  think  of  ourselves 
as  others  think  of  us  ?  and  that  not  by  a  rational  act 
of  judgment  but  a  mere  passive  yielding  to  an  im- 
pression from  without.  Let  people  around  us  think 
poorly  of  us,  and  we  think  poorly  of  ourselves,  at  least 
it  requires  an  effort  not  to  do  so ;  the  opposition  to 
surrounding  influence  taxes  our  self-reliance.  Hence 
it  is  that,  as  an  ordinary  rule,  it  is  not  good  for  a  man 
either  to  live  with  or  even  see  much  of  another  who 
habitually  depreciates  him  ;  such  intercourse  tends  to 
lower  his  spirit.  For  though  a  man's  self-reliance 
ought  to  be  tested,  it  ought  to  be  tested  fairly,  it  ought 
not  to  have  a  constant  weight  thrown  upon  it. 

To  return  then  to  the  Old  Testament  facts, — we 
may  observe  that  the  same  defective  idea  of  human 
individuality,  and  the  right  and  property  of  the  in- 
dividual in  his  own  life,  which  prevailed  in  early  ages 
generally,  is  traceable  even  in  the  Patriarchal  and 
Jewish  mind.  It  would  indeed  be  expecting  too  much 
from  a  rude  nation  under  slow  training  for  higher 
truth,  that  they  should  not  partake  of  the  general 


44  The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac. 

notions  of  the  world  at  that  time  regarding  the 
natural  rights  of  man.  This  latter  is  in  truth,  though 
its  root  is  in  our  moral  nature,  an  idea  of  the  civil  or 
political  order,  and  therefore  it  is  not  an  idea  of  which 
a  purely  religious  dispensation,  Patriarchal  or  Jewish, 
guaranteed  the  present  communication.  It  is  an  idea 
which  is  part  of  the  civilisation  of  mankind,  and  we 
might  as  well  expect  at  once  civilisation  in  the  early 
stages  of  human  society,  as  expect  this  idea  of  the  true 
individuality  of  man  in  those  stages.  We  do  not  in- 
deed, in  identifying  it  with  civilisation,  disconnect  it 
with  morals :  civilisation  has  its  moral  side  in  those 
ideas  w^hich  relate  to  the  rights  of  man, — which  belong 
to  the  realm  of  justice,  and  the  development  of  which 
is  a  development  and  manifestation  of  justice.  Still, 
though  it  is  the  moral  side  of  civilisation  to  which 
those  ideas  belong,  they  are  a  part  of  civilisation : 
they  are  political  ideas.  They  come  under  the  political 
head ;  they  appertain  to  mankind  in  their  aspect  of  a 
community  as  a  subject  of  social  order;  they  con- 
cern man  in  society,  and  in  relation  to  his  brother 
man.  They  are  therefore  political  ideas,  and  belong- 
to  the  growth  of  civilisation.  It  cannot  therefore  be 
any  reflection  upon  Patriarchal  life  and  ethics  to  say 
that  in  that  early  age  they  were  defective  in  ideas  of 
that  order.  Nor  is  there  any  reason  why  we  should 
impose  upon  ourselves  the  supposition  that  the  ages 
of  the  Patriarchs,  or  the  age  of  Moses,  Joshua,  or  even 
David,  had  the  same  exact  sense  of  the  natural  right 
of  the  individual  man  that  the  world  now,  after  ages 
of  Divine  schooling,  has  attained ,  for  this  would  be  to 


The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac.  45 

be  guilty  of  antedating  the  effect  to  the  cause,  and  to 
expect  beforehand  that  very  standard  which  was  to 
follow  after  or  from  the  course  of  the  Divine  dis- 
pensations ; — that  very  estimate  and  point  of  view 
in  the  beginning  of  the  Divine  education  which  was 
to  be  the  end  and  the  result  of  it.  That  man  was 
made  in  the  image  of  God  was  indeed  the  original 
truth  which  contained  the  independent  and  true  indi- 
viduality of  the  being;  but  this  germinal  truth  wanted 
development,  and  Patriarchal  life  was  antecedent  to 
that  development. 

It  is  not  unworthy  of  notice  that  the  degree  of 
the  jus  naturale  of  the  individual  with  reference  to 
his  own  life,  and  his  own  property  in  it,  is  not  even 
yet  an  entirely  settled  question  in  the  world;  that 
upon  the  primary  article  of  the  right  to  deprive  man 
of  life,  men  are  not  even  yet  agreed ;  and  while  the 
generality  maintain  the  justice  of  taking  it  away  in 
self-defence,  or  for  the  punishment  of  crime,  a  con- 
siderable minority  deny  the  right  of  civil  justice  to 
interfere  with  human  life ;  and  one  sect  maintains 
the  absolute  inviolability  of  human  life.  If  the 
question  then  of  the  degree  of  the  individual's  right 
and  property  in  life  is  not  even  yet  decided,  and 
considerable  uncertainty  still  attaches  to  it,  this 
may  help  us  to  understand  in  what  obscurity  the 
whole  question  of  the  right  of  life  might  lie  in  the 
earliest  ages  of  the  world,  when  law  was  first  emerg- 
ing out  of  a  state  of  nature,  and  before  the  rights  of 
the  ruler  had  undergone  any  scrutiny  :  and  to  under- 
stand too  how  this  obscurity  could  exist  even  in  the 


46  The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac. 

Patriarchal  mind,  without  any  reflection  upon  it, 
simply  by  reason  of  the  age  of  the  world  to  which  it 
belonged.  Human  power  is  a  limited  idea  in  modern 
society, — how  far  its  rights  extend  with  respect  to  the 
individual :  but  then  human  power  was  an  unlimited 
idea,  without  definite  boundary  or  check ;  what  it 
could  do  or  what  it  could  not  do  to  the  individual 
was  all  in  confusion ;  and  in  the  haze  which  rested 
upon  this  whole  subject,  one  idea  was  dominant, 
viz.  that  one  man  belonged  to  another,  and  was  an 
appendage  to  another,  the  son  to  the  father,  the 
servant  to  the  master,  and  the  like.  The  principle 
of  the  inviolability  of  human  life  was  indeed  always 
admitted  in  a  degree,  but  it  was  the  degree  of  the 
inviolability  upon  which  the  morality  of  particular  in- 
terferences with  life,  and  the  sufficiency  of  particular 
reasons  for  that  interference,  hinged. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  this  conception  of 
man,  as  the  property  of  and  the  appendage  to  another, 
is  not  one  which  involves  any  cruelty,  any  harsh- 
ness. A  father  may  regard  his  son  as  being,  as  a 
matter  of  right,  his  property  ;  and  yet  this  very  son 
may  be  to  him  his  dearest  treasure,  and  the  loss  of 
him  may  be  the  bitterest  grief.  The  idea  does  not 
interfere  with  the  tenderest  inward  relations  of  a 
father  to  him.  When  Eeuben  says,  "  Slay  my  two 
sons,  if  I  bring  him  not  to  thee"1 — the  speech 

1  Gen.  xlii.  37.  "Among  the  Jews,  as  among  most  nations  of  an- 
tiquity, the  parental  power  was  absolutely  despotic,  even  to  life  and 
death.  The  Mosaic  Jaw,  however,  enacted  that  a  guilty  son  could  not 
be  punished  with  death,  except  by  the  judicial  sentence  of  the  commu- 
nity."— Milman's  History  of  the  Jews,  vol.  i.  p.  22. 


The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac.  47 

certainly  shows  that  the  father  of  the  Patriarchal 
age  regarded  the  son  as  belonging  to  him,  as  being 
in  a  way  his  property,  so  that  as  a  matter  of  right 
his  life  was  lawfully  at  his  disposal.  But  it  does  not 
show  want  of  paternal  affection,  or  that  he  made  the 
offer  in  any  other  spirit  than  that  of  self-sacrifice ;  as 
a  surrender  just  of  the  very  article  of  property  which 
was  dearest  to  him,  when  the  preservation  of  the 
whole  community  was  at  stake  ;  and  a  hostage  and 
pledge  for  the  safety  of  Jacob's  beloved  son  seemed  to 
be  wanted  in  the  severe  extremity.  The  idea  of 
property  is  in  no  contradiction  at  all  to  love ;  human 
love  regards  the  being ;  and  the  rights  with  respect  to 
the  being  do  not  alter  the  being.  This  is  a  question 
of  what  you  can  do  to  another :  his  own  value  to  you, 
dearness  to  you,  is  another  thing.  The  life  may  be 
worth  anything  to  you ;  but  the  jus — the  particular 
right,  your  power  over  it,  is  a  distinct  idea.  It 
might  be  said  in  some  despotisms,  the  power  only 
heightens  the  love ;  because  the  absolute  dependence 
of  another  would  be  an  actual  claim  upon  affec- 
tion, and  his  being  at  your  mercy  would  give  him  at 
once  an  acceptableness  in  your  sight. 

Undoubtedly  the  defective  conception  of  human 
individuality  was  an  opening  for  cruelty  and  oppres- 
sion, and  the  greatest  practical  enormities ;  but  it 
does  not  in  itself  involve  them.  As  proofs  of  the 
existence  of  this  universal  defective  conception  in 
ancient  society,  I  referred  above  to  Sparta,  Eome,  and 
the  prevalence  of  human  sacrifices.  But  though  this 
original  defect  of  conception  was  a  condition  of  the 


48  The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac? 

rise  of  these  inhuman  codes  and  this  ferocious 
practice,  and  though  they  could  not  have  arisen 
without  it,  this  is  not  to  say  that  the  mere  defect  of 
conception  itself  amounted  to  inhumanity,  or  that  it 
necessarily  produced  inhumanity.  It  was  in  itself  a 
neutral  intellectual  defect.  And  though  the  savage 
character  of  some  communities  founded  cruel  and 
oppressive  practices  upon  it,  there  is  no  reason  why  it 
may  not  have  existed  in  other  communities  and  in 
the  Jewish,  without  such  results,  and  with  the  tone  of 
society  not  brutalised  and  made  cruel  by  it. 

With  this  defective  idea,  then,  of  human  indi- 
viduality, with  this  way  of  regarding  one  man  as 
belonging  to  another  man,  established  in  the  ancient 
mind  and  in  the  Patriarchal  mind  generally,  we  come 
to  the  act  of  the  great  Patriarch.  In  the  present 
age,  with  the  principle  of  human  individuality  and 
right  now  developed  and  become  the  law  of  our  con- 
duct to  man,  an  interference  on  our  part  with  the  life 
of  the  human  independent  being,  supposed  to  be  inno- 
cent, is  so  utterly  incongruous,  that  a  miracle  on  the 
side  of  such  an  act  would  necessarily  be  interpreted  by 
us  as  a  trial  of  faith,  and  not  as  evidence  of  a  Divine 
command.  But  in  the  Patriarch's  age  there  was  not 
that  moral-political  conception  of  man  which  consti- 
tutes this  counterbalance  to  the  miracle,  and  therefore 
he  gave  the  miracle  that  interpretation  which  was  the 
more  obvious  one,  and  which  was  in  fact  intended  by 
God,  of  evidence  of  a  Divine  command.  In  his  case 
there  was  the  miracle,  but  there  was  not  the  weight  in 
the  opposite  scale— the  evidence  within  which  conflicted 


The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac.  49 

with  the  evidence  without.  There  was  not  that  idea, 
which  it  belonged  to  the  subsequent  Divine  education 
to  develop  in  the  world — the  principle  that  a  man  is 
an  independent  individual  being,  in  distinction  to  his 
being  the  appendage  of  another  man.  We  are  struck 
immediately  in  the  Scripture  account  of  the  sacrifice  of 
Isaac  with  the  habitual  sense  of  ownership — as  distinct 
from  conferred  momentary  command, — with  the  entire 
absence  of  all  struggle  in  the  mind  of  the  Patriarch ; 
how  he  simply  regards  his  son  as  a  treasure  of  his 
own  which  he  has  to  give  up,  a  treasure  which  is 
dearer  to  him  than  any  other  earthly  thing,  and  which 
it  is  the  greatest  trial  of  his  life  to  part  with,  but  which 
is  still  his  own,  belonging  to  him  and  appropriate  to 
him  to  surrender.  This  is  the  impression  which  the 
whole  of  the  scene  itself  raises.  Indeed,  if  any  one 
imagines  that  the  idea  of  property  in  the  human  being 
could  be  incompatible  with  the  greatest  tenderness  of 
affection,  such  an  unreasonable  notion  must  vanish 
with  the  solemn  and  beautiful  account  in  Scripture. 
The  tenderness  of  affection  for  the  son,  in  the  very  act 
of  surrendering  him  as  his  property,  is  prominent  in 
this  picture.  But  still  he  is  the  property ;  the  ancient 
idea  of  the  son  as  belonging  to  the  father  pervades 
the  whole  account.  It  is  as  his  own  property  that  he 
surrenders  and  sacrifices  the  son.  No  description  of 
this  wonderful  transaction  could  have  more  clearly 
exhibited  how  entirely  consistent  the  sense  of  property 
in  the  individual  is  with  the  value,  the  preciousness,  of 
that  individual.  If  there  really  were  any  one  who 

E 


50  The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac. 

could  suppose  that  a  man's  interest  and  delight  in 
something  that  belonged  to  him  was  less  because  it 
belonged  to  him ;  that  his  property  was  less  dear  to 
him  because  it  was  his  property ;  such  an  extraordi- 
nary inference  would  certainly  be  wholly  confuted  by 
this  passage  of  Bible  history.  If  any  one  could  really 
think  that  the  transcendent  greatness  of  the  sacrifice 
and  the  surrender,  would  be  in  the  least  affected  by 
the  circumstance  that  what  a  man  was  called  upon  to 
surrender  was  a  treasure  of  his  own,  something  which 
belonged  to  him,  something  which  was  part  of  himself, 
such  a  mistake  must  be  corrected  by  this  description. 
The  son  in  this  representation  belongs  to  the  father ; 
and  when  we  come  to  examine  and  authenticate  that 
impression  we  find  it  is  what  the  whole  history  of  the 
ancient  mind  verifies.  The  father,  according  to  the 
ideas  of  the  age,  regarded  the  son  as  his  own,  in  such  a 
sense  as  made  the  sacrifice  a  sacrifice  of  what  belonged 
to  the  father,  and  which  was  appropriate  to  the  father 
to  surrender.  But  at  the  present  day  the  man  belongs 
to  himself  and  not  to  another  ;  his  life  is  his  own ;  and 
to  sacrifice  that  life  is  to  sacrifice  what  is  the  property 
of  that  man  and  of  no  other,  to  give  up  that  which  is 
not  yours  to  give.  The  great  Patriarch  was  thus  a 
natural  subject  of  a  Divine  command  to  sacrifice  his 
son ;  because,  in  consequence  of  the  earlier  ideas 
then  prevailing,  nothing  interposed  between  his  own 
convictions  and  the  authority  of  the  miracle;  but 
a  miracle  to  do  such  an  act  would  be  utterly  incon- 
gruous at  the  present  day,  when  no  external  evidence 
to  sacrifice  another's  life  could  possibly  outweigh 


The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac.  5 1 

the  strong  internal  convictions  which  forbid  the  inter- 
ference with  it. 

The  general  conclusion  is,  that  according  to  the 
very  conditions  of  miraculous  evidence  laid  down  in 
Scripture,  civilisation  must  in  some  cases  affect  the 
relevancy  of  miracles  as  evidence  of  Divine  commands. 
Abstractedly  the  Lord  of  human  life  can  command 
the  destruction  of  that  life ;  but  the  question  before 
us  is  a  question  not  of  abstract  propositions  only,  but 
of  what  there  is  evidence  of;  and  civilisation  affects 
the  question  of  evidence;  affects  it  upon  the  principles 
of  Scripture  itself.  The  Scripture  law  of  miraculous 
evidence  qualifies  and  checks  that  evidence  by  the 
rival  force  of  inward  moral  grounds  and  principles. 
The  unity  of  God  was  no  sooner  established  than 
miracles  were  nugatory  in  favour  of  idolatry ;  and  the 
truths  of  the  Gospel  were  no  sooner  established  than 
miracles  became  nugatory  in  favour  of  another  gospel. 
And  this  Scriptural  principle  of  counteraction  to 
miraculous  evidence  must  apply  as  well  to  any  other 
moral  grounds  and  principles  of  which  we  feel  certain, 
and  which  have  established  themselves  in  our  moral 
standard.  But  civilisation  does  create  such  grounds 
and  principles  in  our  minds,  because  civilisation  is  not 
entirely  a  material  movement  but  is  also  a  moral 
movement  —  moral  in  regard  to  some  principles  of 
human  right  and  practice.  In  the  moral  progress  of 
mankind  in  the  later  ages  of  the  world,  the  intense 
conviction  has  sprung  up  of  certain  truths  respecting 
man,  and  certain  principles  of  right  and  justice  in 
regard  to  man ;  and  these  principles  within  us  become 


52  The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac. 

counter-evidence  to  the  authority  of  miracles,  when 
those  profess  to  command  acts  which  are  in  an  opposite 
direction.  In  those  cases,  therefore,  the  growth  of 
civilisation  affects  the  authority  of  miracles  and  the 
argument  from  miracles.  For  the  more  certain  we 
become  of  any  truth  regarding  God  or  man,  the  more 
are  we  out  of  the  power  of  being  convinced  by  a 
miracle  which  would  lead  in  a  contrary  direction  to 
that  truth.  In  this  way  the  progress  of  mankind 
must  gradually  exclude  certain  homicidal  acts,  as 
subjects  of  Divine  command,  upon  miraculous  evidence. 
The  Scripture  philosophy  of  miracles  enforces  a  fresh 
modification  of  the  doctrine  of  miraculous  evidence, 
upon  fresh  moral  convictions  arising.  Before  the 
ideas  of  natural  right  were  developed,  homicidal  Divine 
command  was  capable  of  miraculous  evidence;  but 
suppose  these  ideas  developed,  then  the  inward  anta- 
gonism to  the  acts  is  so  strong  that  they  cannot  be 
surmounted  by  anything  miraculous  that  is  only  out- 
wardi  and  the  alternative  becomes  unavoidable,  that 
the  miracle  is  for  the  other  purpose  mentioned  in 
Scripture,  viz.  the  trial  of  faith,  and  not  the  support 
of  a  command. 

But  in  this  state  of  the  case,  in  which  the  miracu- 
lous evidence  of  a  certain  class  of  Divine  commands  is 
necessarily  neutralised,  it  becomes  impossible  to  sup- 
pose that  there  will  be  the  Divine  commands ;  and 
therefore  what  has  been  said  amounts  to  this,  that  God 
adapts  His  commands  to  different  ages.  It  is  unreason- 
able to  suppose  that  God  would  now  work  miracles  in 
cases  in  which  His  own  educating  providence  has 


The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac.  53 

neutralised  them  as  evidence  of  His  commands : 
that  is  to  say,  He  would  not  now  give  the  com- 
mand. But  that  He  would  not  give  such  commands 
now,  is  not  to  say  that  He  might  not  give  them  in  a 
former  age,  when  such  commands  had  an  appropriate 
and  natural  mode  of  proof;  viz.  by  miracles — that  is, 
by  the  full  evidence  which  miracles  had,  before  that 
evidence  was  modified  by  the  ideas  which  His  own 
educatory  providence  has  since  instilled.  God  adapts 
His  employment  of  miracles  to  the  state  of  evidence ; 
which,  upon  the  Scriptural  rule,  differs  with  man's  dif- 
ferent states  of  enlightenment ;  and  with  the  evidence 
for  the  commands,  necessarily  also  withdraws  the  com- 
mands ;  and  thus  we  come,  as  to  the  ultimate  position, 
to  the  rule  of  Divine  wisdom,  that  God  suits  His  com- 
mands to  the  age ;  and  gives  or  withholds  them  accord- 
ing as  man  is  a  natural  recipient  of  them. 

It  will  indeed  be  denied  by  some  that  such  miracles 
to  command  such  acts  ever  really  took  place ;  and  it 
will  be  said  that  these  were  simply  actions  of  the  age, 
inspired,  both  on  their  good  and  their  bad  side,  by  the 
spirit  of  the  age  in  which  they  were  done.  But  such 
a  question  as  this,  however  necessary  to  meet  in 
its  proper  place,  is  not  one  which  appertains  to  the 
particular  section  of  Old  Testament  inquiry  now  under 
discussion.  In  examining  the  morality  of  the  Old 
Testament,  we  must  take  the  actions  of  the  Old 
Testament  history  as  they  are  there  given ;  we  are  not 
concerned  with  other  actions,  or,  what  is  the  same 
thing,  with  the  actions  as  otherwise  described.  An 
objector  to  Scripture  history  may  consider  himself 


54  The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac. 

necessitated  by  his  own  ideas  to  make  a  fundamental 
difference  in  the  account  of  these  classes  of  actions  as 
given  in  Scripture ;  he  may  not  believe  in  miracles, 
and,  in  accordance  with  this  belief,  he  may  refuse  to 
hold  that  these  classes  of  actions  were  ever  commanded 
by  miracles.  But  we  are  not  concerned  upon  the 
point  now  under  discussion  with  such  a  conjectural 
speculation  as  this,  which  would  assign  a  different 
basis  to  the  actions  of  the  Old  Testament. 

Upon  the  question  of  the  morality  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, we  must  assume  the  actions  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment as  they  stand  ;  for  the  moral  standard  of  the  Old 
Testament  cannot  be  responsible  for  any  other.  The 
Bible  cannot  be  made  responsible  for  actions  which  are 
not  contained  in  it, — for  other  actions  than  those  which 
it  describes ;  for  actions  grounded  upon  different 
motives  and  different  reasons  and  premisses. 

In  the  case  of  the  homicidal  class  of  actions,  the 
evidence  of  a  Divine  command  constitutes,  in  the  Old 
Testament,  the  very  ground  of  their  justification ;  this 
special  authorisation  is  no  superfluity,  but  the  absolute 
need  of  the  transaction,  without  which  it  is  unwarrant- 
able and  indefensible.  The  defective  idea  of  the  indi- 
vidual's right,  inherent  in  the  age,  was  indeed  the 
condition  of  the  acceptance  of  the  miraculous  evidence 
of  the  command  when  given ;  but  it  did  not  authorise 
the  act  of  itself,  without  the  command.  It  was  the 
Divine  command,  then,  which  made,  according  to  the 
standard  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  distinction  between 
the  patriarchal  acts  in  violation  of  human  life,  and  the 
heathen  ones,  which  were  in  violation  of  the  same 


The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac.  5  5 

principle;  and  we  may  add  as  well,  between  some 
Jewish  homicidal  acts  and  others.  No  one  could  pos- 
sibly compare  the  ground  upon  which  the  sacrifice  of 
Isaac  stands  in  the  Old  Testament,  with  the  ground 
upon  which  Jephthah's  sacrifice  of  his  daughter  stands. 
The  latter  is  mentioned  as  a  simple  fact,  without  the 
shadow  of  an  approval ;  because  indeed  it  was,  like  the 
heathen  acts  of  that  kind,  unauthorised.  The  former 
is  extolled  as  the  very  model  of  faith  and  self-surrender. 
The  punishment  of  the  children  on  account  of  the 
father's  crime  was  prohibited  in  the  Jewish  code,  and 
was,  as  a  matter  of  human  law,  condemned.1  It  was 
the  special  Divine  command  which  alone  was  regarded 
as  authorising  it  in  the  Old  Testament. 

But  it  will  be  said,  perhaps,  Can  we  suppose  God 
taking  advantage  of  an  actually  inferior  state  of  ideas 
in  the  world,  in  order  to  give  a  particular  command, 
which  He  would  not  give  in  an  age  of  higher  and 
more  mature  ideas  ?  Can  we  suppose  Him  working  a 
miracle  for  it  then,  because,  in  an  inferior  state  of 
ideas  on  moral  subjects,  a  miracle  could  not  be  in 
conflict  with  internal  evidence  ?  It  may  be  replied 
that  such  a  discriminating  proceeding  would  doubt- 
less be  an  instance  of  accommodation ;  but  why  not 
of  wise  accommodation  ?  It  seems  to  belong  suitably 
to  the  Divine  Governor  of  the  world  to  extract  out  of 
every  state  of  mankind  the  highest  and  most  noble 
acts  to  which  the  special  conceptions  of  the  age  can 
give  rise,  and  direct  those  earlier  ideas  and  modes  of 
thinking  toward  such  great  moral  achievements 

1  Deut.  xxiv.  16. 


56  The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac. 

as  are  able  to  be  founded  upon  them.  If  there  is 
a  progress  in  ideas,  why  should  not  one  stage  as  well 
as  another,  a  former  stage  as  well  as  a  later,  a  ruder 
as  well  as  a  more  enlightened,  express  itself  according 
to  its  own  model,  and  present  to  God  the  various 
developments  in  act,  of  the  same  fundamentally 
virtuous  will  ?  Let  man  show  forth  all  the  good  that 
he  is  capable  of,  in  the  mode  and  manner  in  which  he 
is  capable  of  it.  If  in  earlier  ages  he  was  unshackled 
by  the  later  ideas  of  the  individual's  right  and  property 
in  life,  and  if  it  so  happened  that  a  very  wonderful 
and  extraordinary  self-sacrifice  could  be  drawn  out  of 
this  very  want  in  the  age,  why  should  not  the  human 
mind  be  directed  in  the  way  of  that  sacrifice,  and  that 
great  religious  self-surrender  be  extracted  from  it  by 
a  Divine  command  ? 

Such  an  act  was  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac,  and  such 
was  the  state  of  ideas  which  preceded  it  as  the 
conditions  of  the  act.  The  self-sacrifice  in  the  act  is 
obvious  from  the  history.  It  was,  in  the  first  place, 
neither  more  nor  less  than  to  all  appearance  total 
ruin — the  downfall  of  every  hope,  and  the  collapse  of 
a  life.  To  an  ordinary  man  of  business  even,  if  he 
has  any  spirit,  the  breakdown  of  a  life's  work  is  a 
dreadful  thought ;  because  he  wants  to  feel — and  it  is 
a  legitimate  want — that  he  has  done  something,  and 
that  he  has  been  somebody.  But  the  Patriarch  had 
through  life  felt  himself  the  minister  and  instrument 
of  a  great  Divine  design  with  respect  to  mankind : 
he  had  lived  with  a  gigantic  prospect  before  him, 
with  an  immense  expanding  blessing,  which  was  one 


The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac.  57 

day  to  include  all  nations  and  be  the  restoration  of 
the  world.  This  vast  plan  then,  his  part  in  which 
had  been  the  work  of  his  life,  and  had  filled  his  mind 
with  immeasurable  hopes,  as  it  had  been  sown  in 
his  son,  would  perish  with  his  son.  Then  all  was 
over,  and  his  life  had  come  to  nothing.  This  is  one 
side  of  the  act  of  self-sacrifice,  but  it  is  not  all ;  for 
the  child  himself,  he  upon  whom  such  a  promise 
hung,  such  boundless  hope,  such  a  vast  calculation, 
and  who  was  loved  all  the  more  with  a  father's  love 
because  he  was  the  harbinger  of  the  prophet's  great- 
ness, the  symbol  of  life's  purpose  answered ; — he  was 
to  be  surrendered  too.  Such  was  the  act  of  the 
sacrifice  of  Isaac.  But  it  required  the  particular  state 
of  ideas  in  the  world  at  that  time,  and  the  defective 
state  of  ideas  respecting  the  right  of  the  individual 
man,  for  this  great  act  to  be  brought  out.  Without 
those  ideas  it  could  not  have  been  the  subject  of 
Divine  command,  having  evidence  that  it  was  a 
Divine  command ;  a  miracle  would  not  be  evidence  to 
us  that  God  bade  a  father  kill  an  innocent  son  :  if  it 
was,  as  it  was,  evidence  to  Abraham,  it  was  because 
that  clear  idea  of  the  individual  right,  which  involved 
the  inviolability  of  life,  did  not  exist  in  his  age  as  it 
does  in  ours ;  it  was  because  the  Patriarch  of  that  day 
had  the  political  ideas  of  his  day, — of  one  person 
belonging  to  another,  and  the  son  being  the  append- 
age of  the  father.  It  was  out  of  an  inferior  state  of 
ideas  in  regard  to  human  right,  out  of  a  lower 
political  sense,  that  an  act  of  romantic  and  sublime 
self-sacrifice  was  extracted ;  and  the  very  want  in  the 


58  The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac. 

age  was  used  as  a  means  of  developing  the  religion 
of  the  man.  And  this  was  a  step  which  it  was  suit- 
able for  the  Governor  of  the  world  to  take ;  because  it 
enlarged  the  amount  of  human  virtue,  it  made  even 
the  shortcomings  of  the  time  subservient  to  the  per- 
fection of  the  individual ;  and  it  brought  out  a  great 
religious  act  which  was  to  be  a  lesson  and  a  type  to 
all  ages. 

It  must  be  observed  that  great  acts  are  a  decided 
part  of  the  providential  plan  for  the  education  of 
mankind.  The  peculiar  and  superior  force  of  acts  in 
this  direction,  as  compared  with  general  character,  is 
gained  upon  a  principle  which  is  very  intelligible.  A 
great  act  gathers  up  and  brings  to  a  focus  the  whole 
habit  and  general  character  of  the  man.  The  act  is 
dramatic,  while  the  man's  habit  or  character  is  didactic 
only;  and  what  is  more,  there  is  a  limitation  in 
character  which  there  is  not  in  an  act.  There  is  a 
boundlessness  in  an  act.  It  is  not  a  divided,  balanced 
thing,  but  is  like  an  immense  spring  or  leap.  The 
whole  of  the  man  is  in  it,  and  at  one  great  stroke  is 
revealed.  A  great  act  has  thus  a  place  in  time  ;  it  is 
like  a  great  poem,  a  great  law,  a  great  battle,  any 
great  event ;  it  is  a  movement ;  it  is  a  type  which 
fructifies  and  reproduces  itself.  Single  acts  are  trea- 
sures. They  are  like  new  ideas  in  people's  minds. 
There  is  something  in  them  which  moulds,  which  lifts 
up  to  another  level,  and  gives  an  impulse  to  human 
nature.  If  we  examine  any  one  of  those  signal  acts 
which  are  historical,  we  shall  find  that  they  could  none 
of  them  have  been  done  but  for  some  one  great  idea 


The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac.  59 

with  which  the  person  was  possessed,  and  to  which  he 
had  attached  himself.  Thus,  if  we  examine  the  act  of 
Titus  Manlius  in  executing  his  son,  after  crowning  him 
victor,  in  justice  to  the  violated  majesty  of  Eoman 
law,  there  must  have  been  in  his  mind  a  kind  of 
boundless  idea  of  Eome, — of  what  Eome  was  ;  that  it 
was  greater  than  any  conceivable  form  of  greatness, 
and  transcended  all  imaginable  empire.  Eome  was 
to  him  the  impersonation  of  supreme  order,  uncon- 
querable will,  indestructible  power.  Eome  was  eternal 
He  then  who  disobeyed  Eome  must  die ;  even  the 
youthful  victor  in  the  first  flush  of  triumph;  and 
while  the  father's  heart  leapt  with  pride,  the  Eoman 
general  must  be  inflexible.  Thus  the  famous  heathen's 
self-sacrifice  rested  upon  a  boundless  idea  of  the  state 
to  which  he  belonged,  and  the  power  to  which  he  owed 
allegiance. 

In  the  mind  of  the  Patriarch  in  the  place  of  a  great 
power  of  earth  must  be  substituted  the  boundless  idea 
of  an  invisible  Power ;  where  in  the  heathen  father's 
mind  Eome  stood,  there  was  God.  The  Lord  of  this 
universe  has  the  right  to  all  we  have,  and  everything 
must  be  surrendered  to  Him  upon  demand.  But  upon 
an  Almighty  Being  rose  boundless  hope  too  —  the 
vastness  of  conception  which  Scripture  specially  attri- 
butes to  Abraham.  Hope  in  the  ordinary  type,  is 
partly  sight ;  when  light  has  begun  to  dawn,  and  the 
first  signs  of  restoration  and  renewal  appear.  Hope 
is  the  first  sight  we  catch  of  returning  good,  that  first 
gleam  of  it  which  heralds  and  represents  the  end. 
But  hope  which  is  seen  is  not  hope.  It  is  hope  while 


60  The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac. 

all  is  dark  around  us, — while  as  yet  there  is  no  visible 
link  between  us  and  the  end, — that  exhibits  the  prin- 
ciple in  its  greatness  and  in  its  true  energy.    And  this 
hope  must  rest  upon  that  ultimate  Power  at  the  very 
root  of  things  which  can  reverse  every  catastrophe  and 
rectify  all  mistakes.     To  hold  on  to  this  root  is  hope 
withdrawn  into  its  last  fastness ;  and,  without  aid  from 
any  sight,  grasping  with  an  iron  force  the  rock  itself, 
the  foundation  of  Sovereign  Will  upon  which  the  uni- 
verse stands,  and  saying  to  itself,  "  The  whole  may 
shake,  if  this  foundation  remaineth  sure."     This  was 
the  infinite  hope  of  Abraham.     Doubtless  while  he 
lifted  up  the  knife  to  slay  his  son,  the  sun  was  turned 
to  darkness  to  him,  the  stars  left  their  places,  and 
earth  and  heaven  vanished  from  his  sight ;  to  the  eye 
of  sense  all  was  gone  that  life  had  built  up,  and  the 
promise  had  come  actually  to  an  end  for  evermore; 
but  to  the  friend  of  God  all  was  still  as  certain  as 
ever,    all    absolutely   sure    and   fixed ;  the  end,   the 
promise,    nay   even   the    son   of  the    promise,    even 
he  in  the  fire  of  the  burnt-offering  was  not   gone, 
because  that  was  near  and  close  at  hand  which  could 
restore ; — the  great  Power  which  could  reverse  every- 
thing.    A  voice  within  said,  All  this  can  be  undone, 
and  can  pass  away  like  a  dream  of  the  night ;  and 
the  heir    was  safe  in  the  strong  hope  of  him  who 
"  accounted  that  God  was  able  to  raise  him,  up  even 
from  the  dead." 

Do  you  say  then  that  such  an  act  could  not  be 
done  now  ?  That  is  all  the  more  reason  why  it  should 
have  been  done  ; — why  it  should  have  been  done  when 


The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac.  6 1 

it  could  be  done ;  when  the  state  of  evidence  admitted 
of  it ;  when  the  primitive  standard  of  human  rights 
gave  the  son  to  be  the  property  of  the  father,  to  be 
surrendered  by  him,  upon  a  call,  as  his  own  treasure. 
That  idea, — that  very  defective  idea  of  the  age, — it  was, 
which  rendered  possible  the  very  point  of  the  act,  the 
unsurpassable  pang  of  it,  the  self-inflicted  martyrdom 
of  human  affection,  the  death  of  the  son  in  will,  by  the 
father's  hand.  That  idea  of  the  age  therefore  was 
used  to  produce  that  special  fruit  which  it  was  adapted 
to  produce ;  the  particular  great  spiritual  act  of  which 
it  supplied  the  possibility,  and  which  was  the  most 
splendid  flower  of  this  stock.  If  the  idea  of  the  age 
was  rude,  the  act  was  not  the  less  spiritual  which  it 
enabled  to  be  done  ;  because  the  idea  of  the  age  only 
founded  the  proprietary  right  of  the  father,  the  spirit- 
uality of  the  act  lay  in  the  surrender  of  the  son.  The 
surrender  itself  was  of  the  highest  Gospel  type,  as 
being  the  offering  up  of  the  deepest  treasure  of  a  man's 
heart ;  that  which  gave  him  the  sharpest  agony  to  part 
with.  And,  indeed,  we  may  observe  that  however 
rude  was  the  state  of  ideas  which  enabled  the  act  to 
be  done,  the  act  itself  has  been  the  appropriated  lesson 
not  so  much  of  earlier  ages  as  of  later,  not  so  much  of 
Jewish  times  as  of  Christian  :  the  moral  did  not  come 
out  so  clearly  in  Jewish  history ;  it  reserved  itself  till 
Judaism  had  passed  away  and  given  place  to  the 
Gospel;  and  though  an  act  of  earliest  time  had  its 
main  instructive  strength  in  latest.  The  distinction 
then  is  most  important,  and  should  be  always  kept  in 


62  The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac. 

mind,  between  that  state  of  ideas  which  enables  an  act 
to  be  done  and  the  act  itself.  Those  were  doubtless 
primitive  and  rude  ideas  as  to  the  rights  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  inviolability  of  life,  which  made  the 
Divine  command  to  slay  an  innocent  son  credible,  and 
a  miracle  sufficient  proof  of  it ;  but  the  spirituality  of 
the  surrender  was  not  in  the  least  affected  by  that 
circumstance.  The  fjOos  of  the  act,  the  faith,  the 
trust,  the  resignation,  were  the  same.  The  act  is 
wholly  distinct  from  the  evidence  of  the  obligation 
to  it;  the  evidence  was  affected  by  the  age;  an 
eternal  and  spiritual  type  distinguished  the  act. 

Thus,  far  from  any  lowering  effect  attaching  to  the 
principle  that  God  makes  use  of  the  ruder  conditions 
of  the  human  mind,  and  accommodates  His  commands 
to  different  ages,  on  the  contrary,  this  principle  has 
produced  the  highest  result.  The  rudeness  of  the  age 
admits  of  having  the  most  exalted  acts  built  upon 
it,  and  acts  which  last  as  exemplars  through  future 
ages  of  enlightenment.  This  principle  does  not  permit 
the  earlier  conditions  of  human  thought  to  lie  fallow 
and  barren,  but  extracts  out  of  every  state  of  the 
human  mind  its  proper  effort,  and  makes  the  best  of 
every  age  in  keeping  with  its  fundamental  ideas. 
Every  period  of  the  world  contributes  the  special 
expression  of  moral  beauty  and  greatness  of  which  it 
admits ;  and  that  magnificent  and  extraordinary  act 
of  romantic  morals  which  cannot  be  obtained  from  a 
higher  state  of  civilisation  is  extracted  from  a  lower. 
Never  again,  indeed,  while  the  world  lasts,  can  that 


The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac.  63 

act  be  done  within  the  Church  of  God  :  but  that  it  has 
been  done  is  the  wealth  of  the  Church  and  of  man- 
kind ;  and  is  the  fruit  of  the  spiritual  policy  of  that 
Great  Being  who  has  educated  the  world,  and  who 
has  worked  to  the  highest  advantage  every  stage  in 
the  moral  progress  of  mankind. 


LECTURE  III. 

HUMAN   SACRIFICES. 

T  DEVOTED  one  Lecture  to  the  general  character 
-*~  and  situation  of  Abraham ;  because  when  we  have 
to  judge  upon  one  very  remarkable  act  of  a  man,  it 
is  an  advantage  to  have  the  man  himself  before  us. 
An  explanation  popular  with  one  school,  of  the  act  of 
the  sacrifice  of  Isaac,  is,  that  it  was  simply  one  of  the 
class  of  human  sacrifices  which  were  common  at  that 
day,  and  especially  among  the  Canaanitish  races ;  that 
Abraham  was  seized  with  an  enthusiasm  of  that 
sanguinary  type  which  propitiated  God  by  human 
victims ;  and  that  he  made  Isaac  the  victim.  It  does 
not  appear  to  me  that  such  a  solution  is  at  all  necessary, 
but  that,  on  the  contrary,  it  clashes  with  the  whole 
history  of  Abraham,  and  the  whole  colour  of  his  life 
and  character;  while  at  the  same  time  it  degrades 
and  calumniates  the  Patriarch.  That  the  Patriarch 
of  that  day  should  not  meet  the  miraculous  evidence 
of  a  Divine  command  to  slay  an  innocent  son,  by  the 
same  counter  internal  evidence  that  we  should  oppose 
to  it  now,  and  that  he  was  unable  to  feel  this  inward 
impediment,  on  account  of  the  defective  moral  and 
political  conceptions  of  that  day, — the  inadequate 
sense  of  human  individuality  and  human  rights, — is  an 


Human  Sacrifices.  65 

explanation  which  does  not  lower  the  Patriarch  in  our 
eyes ;  because  it  only  charges  him  with  ideas  which 
belonged  to  that  age  of  the  world,  and  were  necessary 
in  that  stage  of  human  progress.  This  explanation 
acknowledges  a  Divine  command,  and  that  the  act 
was  done  in  obedience  to  a  Divine  command ;  and  it 
only  requires  that  the  command  was  accommodated 
to  an  earlier  state  of  ideas  regarding  the  human 
being  and  his  rights.  But  to  attribute  to  Abraham 
such  a  defective  state  of  ideas  on  this  subject  is  a 
totally  different  thing  from  implicating  him  in  a 
gross  and  cruel  superstition  which  sacrificed  its 
thousands  upon  inhuman  altars  as  a  propitiation  to 
sanguinary  idols. 

To  represent  him  only  as  without  a  certain  class 
of  ideas  relating  to  humanity,  which  had  not  yet 
arisen  in  the  world,  is  a  completely  different  thing 
from  regarding  him  as  implicated  in  a  horrible  and 
vile  usage,  which  was  a  lapse  and  a  fall  from  the 
antecedent  religion  of  the  world ; — from  making  him  a 
follower  and  disciple  of  the  Canaanites. 

In  comparing,  then,  these  two  explanations  with 
reference  to  the  internal  evidences  of  Scripture  bearing 
upon  them,  and  their  agreement  with  the  facts  of  Abra- 
ham's life  and  character,  I  must  observe  first,  that  the 
whole  portrait  which  Scripture  gives  us  of  Abraham, 
and  which  formed  the  subject  of  the  first  Lecture,  is 
altogether  in  opposition  to  such  a  solution  of  the  sacri- 
fice of  Isaac  as  would  make  it  a  copy  of  the  human 
sacrifices  of  the  Canaanites.  It  is  indeed  doubtful 
whether  the  introduction  of  human  sacrifices  into  the 

F 


66  Human  Sacrifices. 

worship  of  these  people  was  so  early  as  to  be  contem- 
poraneous with  Abraham.  This  is  a  disputed  point. 
Some  able  historical  critics  have  arrived  at  a  contrary 
conclusion,  and  the  terms  on  which  Abraham  stood 
with  the  Canaanites  and  their  chiefs  would  serve  to 
show  that  the  worship  of  the  Canaanites  of  his  day 
was  a  less  advanced  form  of  idolatry  than  that  which 
prevailed  in  a  later  age.  He  is  told  that  his  descend- 
ants, and  not  himself,  shall  possess  the  land,  because 
"the  iniquity  of  the  Amorites  is  not  yet  full;"1  and 
certainly,  if  we  compare  the  aspect  in  which  the 
Canaanites  present  themselves  to  the  eyes  of  Moses, 
the  character  which  he  gives  them,  and  the  detestation 
with  which  he  regards  them,  with  the  apparent  rela- 
tions of  Abraham  to  the  same  people,  we  cannot  but 
see  a  marked  difference  in  the  earlier  and  later  feeling, 
such  as  would  imply  that  these  religious  corruptions 
had  not  grown  to  such  a  height  in  Abraham's  age. 
But  even  granting  that  the  Canaanites  offered  human 
sacrifices  in  Abraham's  time,  the  whole  facts  of  the 
case,  as  recorded  in  Scripture,  contradict  the  supposi- 
tion that  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac  was  put  into  the 
Patriarch's  mind  by  the  sight  of  the  superstitious 
worship  of  those  idolatrous  races.  The  whole  charac- 
ter of  Abraham  is  in  limine  opposed  to  such  a  notion 
as  that  of  his  borrowing  from  the  Canaanites  in  reli- 
gion. For  suppose  a  man  of  lofty  independence  of 
mind,  who  had  cast  off  the  traditions  of  his  own 
country,  rejected  human  authority,  discarded  idols, 
and  embraced  the  true  rational  conception  of  a  God, 

1  Gen.  xv.  16. 


Human  Sacrifices.  67 

to  whom  lie  appropriated  a  spiritual  worship,  adoring 
Him  under  no  material  form  but  in  His  own  in- 
visible essence ;  supposing  him  standing  alone  in  his 
day  in  maintaining  this  pure  worship,  but  casting  his 
eye  forward  upon  a  distant  era  in  the  world's  future, 
when  that  worship  should  become  universal  and  gain 
"all  the  families  of  the  earth  ;"  suppose  a  man  of  this 
remarkable  type, — this  enlightenment  and  perception 
of  deep  truth, — surrounded  by  the  slaves  of  a  grovel- 
ling superstition,  enjoining  cruel  and  inhuman  rites; 
would  it  be  the  natural  tendency  of  such  a  man  to 
accept  the  lead  of  that  low  religion,  to  borrow  from  its 
worst  rites,  and  allow  them  to  dictate  a  great  and 
critical  act  of  his  religious  life  to  him  ?  Such  an  idea 
would  not  enter  into  his  mind.  Such  a  man  would 
look  down  with  a  vast  sense  of  superiority  upon  so 
degraded  a  form  of  religion,  and  would  pass  sentence 
on  it  as  a  judge ;  but  would  not  dream  of  the  attitude 
towards  it  of  a  learner,  imitating  its  inhuman  prac- 
tices, and  permitting  them  to  originate  an  act  of 
worship  for  him.  The  very  thought  of  bowing  to 
such  an  authority  would  be  degradation  and  con- 
tamination to  him. 

But  the  plain  narrative  of  Scripture  forbids  such 
a  supposition  as  this,  because  it  represents  the  act  of 
sacrifice  as  commanded  expressly  by  God — nor  only 
as  commanded  by  God,  but  as  praised  by  God. 
Scripture  extols  it  indeed  as  an  act  of  the  sublimest 
devotion  and  faith,  and  exhibits  it  as  the  ground  of 
an  additional  and  overflowing  renewal  of  the  Divine 
promise  to  the  Patriarch,  which  is  confirmed  by  an 


68  Human  Sacrifices. 

oath  and  is  vouchsafed  to  him  not  as  the  reward  of 
any  former  action  or  actions,  but  specially  and  singly 
on  account  of  this  action  ; — "  Because  thou  hast  done 
this  thing,  and  hast  not  withheld  thy  son,  thine 
only  son,  I  have  sworn  that  in  blessing  I  will  bless 
thee." 1  Such  an  account  of  this  action  is  plainly  in- 
consistent with  its  having  been  done  in  imitation  of 
the  gross  and  cruel  superstitions  of  Canaanites,  and 
excludes  that  rationale  of  it  altogether. 

It  has  indeed  been  observed  that  God's  moving  a 
man  to  do  some  action  is  not,  in  the  language  of 
Scripture,  inconsistent  with  the  motion  being  also  at 
the  same  time  a  temptation  of  Satan ;  and  the  case  is 
pointed  to  of  the  two  different  phrases  about  the  sin 
of  David  in  numbering  the  people,  used  respectively 
in  the  Book  of  Samuel 2  and  the  Book  of  Chronicles ; 3 
in  the  first  of  which  books  God  is  said  to  have  moved 
David  to  do  this  act,  and  in  the  latter  Satan  is  said  to 
have  moved  him.  But  though  it  may  be  admitted 
that  there  is  nothing  in  God  moving  a  man  to  do 
something,  regarded  as  a  phrase,  inconsistent  with 
Satan  moving  him  also,  this  remark  is  totally  irrele- 
vant in  a  case  in  which  God  not  only  moves  a  man  to 
do  an  act,  but  also  praises  that  act  when  done.  It 
may  be  true  that  Satan  may  move  a  man  whom  God 
in  a  certain  sense  moves  too, — moves  in  the  sense  of 
permitting  Satan  or  his  own  lusts  to  move  him  ;  and 
in  this  sense  God  moved  David  to  number  Israel, 
while  the  same  motive  was  also  a  temptation  of  Satan. 
But  it  is  impossible  that  Satan  should  move  a  man 

1  Gen.  xxii.  16.  2  2  Sam.  xxiv.  1.  3  1  Chron.  xxi.  1. 


Human  Sacrifices.  69 

to  do  an  act  which  God  moves  him  to,  and  which 
God  also  praises  after  it  is  done.  The  latter  is  the 
turning  point  which  decides  definitively  in  the  pre- 
sent case  that  Satan  did  not  move  Abraham,  because 
the  act  of  Abraham  being  commended  by  God,  was 
good ;  and  it  is  impossible  that  Satan  should  move  a 
man  to  do  a  good  act.  In  the  case  of  Balaam  it 
may  be  observed  that  God  moved  in  a  sense.  He 
told  Balaam  "  to  rise  up  and  go  with  the  men."  But 
the  context  shows  that  was  only  a  direction  given 
to  Balaam  upon  the  assumption  that  he  chose  to 
follow  his  own  will;  for  God's  anger  was  kindled 
because  he  went.  In  the  case  of  Balaam,  therefore, 
God's  moving  was  quite  consistent  with  Satan's  mov- 
ing. But  had  the  act  of  Balaam  been  praised  by 
God  instead  of  calling  down  the  Divine  censure,  no 
motion  from  Satan  could  have  been  compatible  with 
the  Divine  motion. 

But  when;  from  the  moral  character  of  Abraham, 
we  turn  to  the  actual  plan  of  his  life  and  trial,  we 
find  still  stronger  evidence  against  the  hypothesis  of 
a  copy  of  the  human  sacrifices  of  the  Canaan  it  es  ; 
because  we  find  that  this  hypothesis  is  at  variance 
with  the  whole  plan  and  purpose  of  the  life-trial  of 
Abraham, — that  that  trial  implies  in  its  whole  con- 
struction a  totally  different  object  and  purpose  for 
the  sacrifice  of  Isaac  than  that  which  this  hypothesis 
requires. 

It  is  of  the  very  essence  of  a  propitiatory  sacri- 
fice that  the  offerer  should  contemplate  the  total  loss 
of  the  precious  victim  which  he  surrenders  into  the 


7O  Human  Sacrifices. 

hands  of  offended  deity.1  The  sacrifice  is  made  as  a 
self-inflicted  punishment ;  its  very  object  is  the  part- 
ing with  a  treasure,  the  final  surrender  of  something 
dear  and  valuable  which  belongs  to  him.  There  has 
been  sin,  and  sin  must  be  atoned  for  by  a  voluntary 
act  of  self-deprivation.  In  a  word,  the  purpose  of 
propitiatory  sacrifice  is  penal.  And  this  is  histori- 
cally the  character  of  human  sacrifices ;  they  are 
propitiatory  ;  they  ,are  designed  to  appease  the  anger 
of  an  offended  deity,  by  a  father's  loss  of  a  son  or 
daughter,  whom  he  sacrifices.  Thus  the  angry 
divinities  of  Greece,  who  detained  the  fleet  at  Aulis, 
were  supposed  to  be  pacified  by  Agamemnon's  loss  of 
Iphigenia ;  and  Mesha,  king  of  Moab,  sacrificed  his  son 
to  Chemosh,  upon  the  idea  that  he  should  gratify 
Chemosh  by  the  total  loss  of  his  son,  which  he  volun- 
tarily imposed  on  himself.  But  the  whole  plan  and 
purpose  of  the  trial  of  Abraham  excludes  the  contem- 
plation on  Abraham's  part  of  the  total*  loss  of  Isaac, 
the  heir  of  the  promise,  and  requires  that  he  should 
look  forward  to  the  miraculous  restorati'on  of  his  son 
after  death;  imposing  on  him  indeed  in  this  confident 
expectation  a  piercing  trial  of  his  faith,  but  not  an 

1  I  am  speaking  here  of  the  propitiatory  sacrifice,  according  to  the 
human  notion  of  it,  according  to  what  it  has  always  meant  as  a  part  of 
human  worship,  and  an  act  of  man  himself  offering  up  something  in 
atonement  for  his  sins.  The  same  condition,  however,  attached  to  the 
mystery  of  the  real  Propitiatory  Sacrifice,  only  with  that  qualification 
which  was  necessary  to  fulfil  the  Divine  plan.  For  although  our  Lord 
ever  foresaw  His  own  Eesurrection  as  immediately  succeeding  His  death, 
He  did  not  rise  again  for  the  purpose  of  continuing  His  life  upon  earth, 
which  life  He  had  sacrificed,  but  only  to  give  evidence  of  the  reality 
of  His  propitiation,  and  for  other  purposes. 


H^lman  Sacrifices.  71 

absolute  and  perpetual  loss  of  his  son.  This  is  the 
interpretation  which  the  New  Testament  puts  upon 
the  act  of  Abraham  :  "  Abraham,  when  he  was  tried, 
offered  up  Isaac  :  and  he  that  had  received  the  pro- 
mises offered  up  his  only  begotten  son,  of  whom  it 
was  said,  That  in  Isaac  shall  thy  seed  be  called: 
accounting  that  God  was  able  to  raise  him  up,  even 
from  the  dead ;  from  whence  also  he  received  him  in 
a  figure."  * 

We  observe  that  the  whole  life  of  Abraham  turns 
upon  one  great  trial — the  trial,  viz.,  of  his  faith  in  the 
Divine  promise  to  him  of  a  son  to  be  the  seed  of  a 
whole  nation,  and  by  being  the  seed  of  a  whole  nation 
be  the  channel  of  a  great  future  blessing  to  the  whole 
world.  This  is  what  he  has  to  believe.  But  at  first 
he  has  not  got  a  son.  The  trial  therefore  of  his  faith 
is  to  believe  that  he  shall  have  one ;  and  this  part  of 
his  trial  lasts  a  long  time,  and  the  Patriarch's  faith 
gives  way  under  it  twice.  The  first  occasion  is,  when, 
in  despair  of  a  real  heir,  he  substitutes  his  steward 
Eliezer  as  an  adopted  one.  He  becomes  conscious 
that  this  is  only  a  makeshift  and  an  expedient  of 
his  own,  gives  up  the  arrangement,  supplicates  God 
for  a  real  heir,  is  promised  a  real  heir,  and  believes 
that  promise.  "And  Abram  said,  Lord  God,  what 
wilt  thou  give  me,  seeing  I  go  childless,  and  the 
steward  of  my  house  is  this  Eliezer  of  Damascus? 
Behold,  to  me  thou  hast  given  no  seed :  and,  lo,  one 
born  in  my  house  is  mine  heir.2  And  the  word  of 
the  Lord  came  unto  him,  saying,  This  shall  not  be 

1  Heb.  xi.  17-19.  2  Gen.  xv.  2,  3,  4,  6. 


72  Human  Sacrifices. 

thine  heir ;  but  he  that  shall  come  forth  out  of  thine 
own  bowels  shall  be  thine  heir.  And  he  believed  in 
the  Lord  ;  and  He  counted  it  to  him  for  righteousness." 
The  second  occasion  on  which  the  Patriarch's  faith 
gives  way  is,  when,  at  the  suggestion  of  Sarah  herself, 
he  sets  up  another  substitute  for  a  true  heir,  in  the 
person  of  a  real  son,  but  a  son  by  a  representative 
wife — Hagar,  whom  Sarah  appoints  in  her  own  place. 
This  divergence  from  the  straight  course  of  faith  lasts 
some  years,  though  the  true  belief  in  the  gift  of  a  real 
heir  some  day,  is  never  wholly  suppressed ;  and  the 
confidence  in  the  heirship  of  Ishmael  never  appears  to 
exceed  a  kind  of  despondent  wish  that  he  might  be 
accepted  as  the  heir  in  case  none  other  came.  "  Oh, 
that  Ishmael  might  live  before  thee!"  Again,  how- 
ever, the  promise  of  a  true  heir  is  renewed ;  twice 
renewed.  Abraham,  after  a  short  tumult  of  doubt  in 
his  mind,  believes  absolutely,  while  Sarah  is  rebuked  for 
her  unbelief;  and  then  the  son  is  born.  This  is  the 
final  triumph  of  faith  in  Abraham,  in  the  matter  of  the 
birth  of  a  son.  For  a  long  time  belief  has  been  mixed 
with  doubt,  or  been  broken  by  intervals  of  doubt ;  but 
at  last,  just  when  this  event  is  most  improbable,  nay, 
humanly  speaking  impossible,  at  the  very  acme  of  its 
trial  faith  conquers. 

Such  then  being  the  preceding  course  of  trial 
in  Abraham's  life,  Scripture  informs  us  that  the 
command  to  sacrifice  Isaac  was  but  a  carrying  out  of 
the  same  plan  of  probation;  only  that  whereas, 
before  the  birth  of  the  heir,  the  birth  was  the  subject 
of  the  trial  of  his  faith,  now  it  is  the  preservation  of 


Human  Sacrifices.  73 

the  heir  born ; — that  under  the  most  desperate  circum- 
stances, despite  even  of  complete  apparent  impossi- 
bilities, even  in  the  extreme  case  of  the  actual  natural 
death  of  that  son,  God  would  so  contrive  as  to  secure 
his  continuance,  to  be  the  seed  of  the  future  nation 
and  channel  of  the  future  blessing. 

The  trial  in  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac  is,  whether 
Abraham  would  believe  that  God  could  raise  him  up 
to  life  again ;  and  the  merit  of  Abraham  in  that 
sacrifice  is  the  merit  of  rising  to  this  belief.  His 
trial  hitherto  had  been  to  believe  that  Isaac  would, 
under  such  great  apparent  improbabilities  and  against 
the  order  of  nature,  be  born;  his  trial  now  was, 
while  contemplating  his  sacrifice,  to  believe  that, 
under  such  great  apparent  improbabilities  and  against 
the  order  of  nature,  he  should  survive.  But  the  one 
trial  was  a  continuation  of  and  carrying  on  of  the 
other.  The  probation  of  Abraham  is  upon  one  plan 
and  method,  and  one  part  corresponds  to  and  follows 
up  another.  A  cloud  of  mystery  encompassed  the 
gift  of  the  heir ;  it  first  rested  upon  his  birth ;  and 
when  that  mystery  was  cleared  up,  the  same  cloud 
reappeared  and  rested  upon  his  continuance  in  life. 
The  great  Power  which  so  long  delayed  the  gift  now 
demands  the  surrender  of  it.  The  trial  of  the  Patri- 
arch is,  that  he  has  to  pierce  through  the  cloud  in 
either  case,  and  that  faith  must  foresee,  as  in  the 
first  instance  a  birth,  so  in  the  second  instance  a 
restoration. 

Scripture  then  has  given  us  an  explanation  of  the 
act  of  Abraham  in  offering  up  Isaac  ;  has  told  us 


74  Human  Sacrifices. 

what  the  act  was,  i.e.,  what  it  was  in  the  mind  of 
the  agent ;  its  scope  and  meaning,  the  peculiarity  of 
the  expectation  upon  which  it  was  based;  and  we 
collect  with  certainty  from  this  Scriptural  account  of 
the  act  that  it  was  not  a  propitiatory  sacrifice.  It  is 
wanting  in  all  the  essentials  of  such  a  sacrifice.  The 
object  of  it  was  not  loss  or  punishment,  but  a  certain 
extraordinary  manifestation  of  faith  which  is  thereby 
elicited  from  him, — faith  in  the  continuance  of  the 
life  of  Isaac,  against  the  laws  of  nature,  to  be  the 
heir  and  transmitter  of  the  promise.1  No  sin  in- 
deed of  Abraham's  is  mentioned  for  which  he  has  to 
atone,  and  so  the  notion  of  a  propitiatory  sacrifice  is 
gratuitous ;  but  there  is  also  abundant  positive  evi- 
dence of  another  and  a  different  purpose  in  the  sacri- 
fice; a  purpose  which  actually  conflicted  with  the 
idea  of  a  propitiatory  sacrifice ;  for  the  idea  of  the 
total  loss  of  the  thing  offered  is  essential  to  a  pro- 
pitiatory sacrifice ;  but  it  was  essential  to  the  trial  of 
faith  in  this  case  that  the  thing  offered  should  not  be 
looked  upon  as  totally  lost,  but,  on  the  contrary,  as 
about  to  be  restored.  It  is  the  only  merit  of  Abraham 
in  the  performance  of  this  act,  that  he  believes  that 
the  victim  will  survive  it.  As  the  heir  of  the  promise 

1  Heb.  xi.  17-19.     There  is  an  allusion  to  the  same  explanation 

of  Abraham's  sacrifice  in  Rom.  iv.  16,  and  seq "  The  faith  of 

Abraham  ;  who  is  the  father  of  us  all,"  because  that  (xarsi/am  ou)  he 
believed  God  "  who  quickeneth  the  dead,  and  calleth  those  things  which 
be  not  as  though  they  were."  We  may  observe  that  the  passage  as  a 
whole  is  a  parallel  to  the  passage  in  Hebrews,  connecting  as  it  does  the 
birth  of  Isaac  with  the  same  kind  of  trial  of  faith  as  that  which  the 
passage  in  Hebrews  connects  with  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac.  — See  Note  2. 


Human  Sacrifices.  75 

and  the  guaranteed  link  between  the  Patriarch  and 
the  future  nation  and  blessing,  the  Divine  word  is 
pledged  for  the  continuance  of  Isaac's  life  upon  earth. 
Abraham  relies  upon  this  word.  But  in  the  very  act 
of  thus  relying  upon  it,  he  does  not  surrender  Isaac 
for  good,  he  does  not  contemplate  his  final  loss,  he 
does  not  look  forward  to  a  permanent  parting  with 
him.  He  expects  the  restoration  of  the  victim.  His 
act,  then,  is  entirely  deficient  in  those  characteristics 
which  are  necessary  to  the  idea  of  a  propitiatory 
sacrifice.1  He  contemplates  an  issue  which  negatives 

1  "  The  faith  of  Abraham  was  to  pass  through  a  more  trying  ordeal. 
He  is  suddenly  commanded  to  cut  off  that  life  on  which  all  the  splen- 
did promises  of  the  Almighty  seemed  to  depend.  He  obeys,  and  sets 
forth  with  his  unsuspecting  child  to  offer  the  fatal  sacrifice  on  Mount 
Moriah.  The  immolation  of  human  sacrifices,  particularly  of  the  most 
precious,  the  favourite,  the  first-born  child,  appears  as  a  common  usage 
among  many  early  nations,  more  especially  the  tribes  by  which  Abraham 
was  surrounded.  It  was  the  distinguishing  rite  among  the  worshippers 
of  Moloch  ;  at  a  later  period  of  the  Jewish  history  it  was  practised  by 
a  king  of  Moab  ;  it  was  undoubtedly  derived  by  the  Carthaginians  from 
their  Phoenician  ancestors  on  the  shores  of  Syria.  The  offering  of  Isaac 
bears  no  resemblance,  either  in  its  nature,  or  what  may  be  termed  its 
moral  purport,  to  these  horrid  rites.  Where  it  was  an  ordinary  usage, 
as  in  the  worship  of  Moloch,  it  was  in  unison  with  the  character  of  the 
religion,  and  of  the  deity.  It  was  the  last  act  of  a  dark  and  sanguinary 
superstition,  which  rose  by  regular  gradation  to  this  complete  triumph 
over  human  nature.  The  god  who  was  propitiated  by  these  offerings, 
had  been  satiated  with  more  cheap  and  vulgar  victims  ;  he  had  been 
glutted  to  the  full  with  human  suffering  and  with  human  blood.  In 
general  it  was  the  final  mark  of  the  subjugation  of  the  national  mind 
to  an  inhuman  and  domineering  priesthood.  But  the  Hebrew  religion, 
held  human  sacrifices  in  abhorrence  ;  the  God  of  the  Abrahamitic  family, 
uniformly  beneficent,  imposed  no  duties  which  entailed  human  suffer- 
ing, demanded  no  offerings  which  were  repugnant  to  the  better  feelings 
of  our  nature.  Where,  on  the  other  hand,  these  filial  sacrifices  were  of 
rare  and  extraordinary  occurrence,  they  were  either  to  expiate  some 


76  Human  Sacrifices. 

it  as  such  a  sacrifice  :  and  it  is  his  merit,  and  it  belongs 
to  the  very  nature  of  his  probation  in  this  matter,  that 
he  should  do  so. 

It  may  be  objected,  perhaps,  that  this  account  of 
the  transaction  does  not  allow  that  which  appears  to 
be  an  essential  feature  of  the  sacrifice  on  Mount 
Moriah,  the  real  surrender  on  Abraham's  part  of  the 
object  of  his  deepest  affections.  It  may  be  said  that 
this  sacrifice  was  undoubtedly  an  act  of  mortification 
and  the  surrender  of  a  treasure,  and  that,  as  such,  it 
has  been  regarded  in  all  ages  as  the  type  of  the  self- 
denying  and  self-sacrificing  life ;  but  that  if  Abraham 
all  along  looked,  and  looked  with  confidence,  to  the 
recovery  of  his  treasure,  there  was  no  true  surrender 
and  no  sacrifice  in  this  act.  It  would,  however,  be  a 
great  mistake  to  say  that,  because  there  was  the  con- 
templation of  a  recovery  here,  there  was  therefore  no 
act  of  surrender  or  sacrifice.  It  must  be  considered, 
if  Abraham  resigns  the  possession  of  his  son  by  cut- 
ting asunder  the  common  bond  of  life,  that  that  is  a 
true  resignation  of  him.  Death  is  an  undeniable  test 
of  the  act  of  surrender.  If  the  Patriarch  looked  be- 
yond death,  to  a  recovery,  that  did  not  negative  the 
surrender  which  ipso  facto  had  taken  place  in  death. 

dreadful  guilt,  to  avert  the  imminent  vengeance  of  the  offended  deity, 
or  to  extort  his  blessing  on  some  important  enterprise.  But  the  offer- 
ing of  Isaac  was  neither  piacular  nor  propitiatory.  ...  It  was  a  simple 
act  of  unhesitating  obedience  to  the  Divine  command  ;  the  last  proof 
of  perfect  reliance  on  the  certain  accomplishment  of  the  Divine  pro- 
mises. Isaac,  so  miraculously  bestowed,  could  be  as  miraculously 
restored  ;  Abraham,  such  is  the  comment  of  the  Christian  Apostle, 
believed  that  God  could  even  raise  him  up  from  the  dead" — Milman's 
History  of  the  Jews,  vol.  i.  p.  20. 


Human  Sacrifices.  77 

Such  a  yielding  up  was  losing  sight  of  him,  seeing  him 
vanish  from  time,  from  visible  nature ;  it  was  parting 
with  him,  according  to  physical  law,  for  ever.  Had  the 
father  clutched  the  prize  of  a  son,  and  once  got,  had 
refused  to  part  with  him  out  of  his  sight,  that  would 
have  been  the  denial  of  surrender ;  but  the  Patriarch  in 
this  act  committed  him  resignedly  into  God's  hands, 
and  trusted  him  beyond  the  borders  of  the  material 
world  into  an  invisible  keeping.  He  contemplated 
without  shrinking  an  awful  chasm  in  the  earthly  life 
of  the  heir  ;  he  saw  him  for  a  moment  swallowed  up 
in  the  abyss,  and  only  to  be  restored  to  him  by  a 
mysterious  hand.  But  this  was  an  act  of  true  self- 
sacrifice,  and  involved  a  true  surrender  of  a  dear 
possession. 

The  explanation,  then,  of  the  act  of  the  sacrifice  of 
Isaac  by  supposing  it  to  be  a  copy  of  the  human 
sacrifices  of  the  Canaanites,  breaks  down  at  every 
step.  It  fails  first  by  being  in  total  disagreement 
with  the  character  and  mind  of  Abraham ;  it  fails 
next  by  being  in  absolute  discord  with  the  whole  plan 
and  purpose  of  the  life-trial  of  Abraham.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  account  given  of  the  act  in  the 
slightest  degree  to  connect  it  with  such  a  worship 
and  such  a  motive.  The  human  sacrifices  of  the 
ancient  world  were  in  atonement  for  public  crimes, 
and  were  offered  up  in  great  national  emergencies, 
when  war  or  pestilence  threatened  the  very  existence 
of  the  people,  and  there  was  a  cry  for  a  great 
deliverance.  They  were  at  any  rate  propitiatory,  and 
supposed  bloodshed,  or  sacrilege,  or  some  heinous 


78  Human  Sacrifices. 

crime,  as  the  occasion  of  them.  But  here  there  is  no 
crime  mentioned  for  which  propitiation  is  wanted. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  trial  upon  which  the  life  of 
the  Patriarch  turns  is  clear  and  conspicuous  ;  and 
that  demands  a  sacrifice  which  is  not  propitiatory, 
but  which  is  simply  a  trial  of  faith.  A  sceptic  will 
have  his  own  explanation  to  give  of  a  life  turning 
upon  such  a  trial ;  but  even  he,  if  he  takes  the  account 
as  it  stands,  must  admit  that  it  is  wholly  opposed  to 
the  idea  of  the  Patriarch's  surrender  of  his  son  as  a 
propitiatory  sacrifice : — that  the  Patriarch's  act  stands 
upon  other  ground,  and  that  the  motives  and  the 
prospects  in  the  case  have  nothing  in  common  with 
those  which  originate  a  propitiatory  human  sacri- 
fice. He  will  attribute  the  Patriarch's  faith  in  the 
restoration  of  Isaac  from  the  dead,  to  a  visionary  and 
wild  fanaticism ;  but  even  he  will  not  dispute,  as  an 
historical  truth,  that  Abraham  was  perfectly  capable 
of  looking  forward  to  such  a  solution  of  the  difficulty, 
of  believing  in  such  a  miracle  :  that  his  eye  could  over- 
leap the  dark  chasm,  and  see  his  son  standing  safe  on 
the  other  side  of  it ;  and  that  he  was  of  such  a  mind 
and  spirit  as  that  he  could  unhesitatingly  believe 
that  the  heir  of  the  promise  would  issue  alive  out  of 
the  very  jaws  of  death.  This  state  of  mind  may  be 
amazing  to  him — a  transformation  and  revolutionis- 
ing of  human  nature  ;  but  that  it  has  existed  in  men 
the  most  absolute  infidel  cannot  doubt.  The  whole 
religion  of  the  Bible  is,  from  beginning  to  end, 
historically  founded  upon  this  absolute  faith  in  an 
absolutely  omnipotent  God.  But  such  a  belief,  in 


Human  Sacrifices.  79 

the  mind  of  the  Patriarch,  in  a  certain  restoration  of 
Isaac, — if  we  contemplate  it  only  as  a  physiological 
fact, — excludes  wholly  the  intention  of  a  propitiatory 
sacrifice,  i.e.,  a  human  sacrifice  in  the  ordinary  meaning 
of  that  term,  and  separates  the  motive  and  design  of 
it  altogether  from  that  religious  basis. 

Such  is  the  preponderance  of  evidence  against 
the  interpretation  of  a  human  sacrifice,  drawn  from 
the  whole  life  of  Abraham,  its  order,  course, 
character,  and  plan ;  the  whole  internal  evidence  of 
the  narrative  is  a  protest  against  such  a  construction ; 
while,  on  the  side  of  that  interpretation,  there  is  only 
one  fact,  viz.  that  there  were  such  sacrifices  in  the 
ancient  world. 

But  while  the  sacrifice  of  Abraham  was  in  itself, 
and  as  a  commanded  action,  a  trial  of  the  Patriarch's 
faith  and  not  a  propitiatory  act,  it  was  yet  designed 
that  it  should  at  the  same  time  be  a  type  and  figure  of 
the  great  Propitiation.1  For  it  is  not  essential  to  a 
type  that  it  should  be  a  complete  resemblance  and 
copy  of  that  event  of  which  it  is  the  type,  and  should 
in  all  respects  follow  the  pattern  of  the  antetype.  In 
the  sacrifice  of  Abraham  and  in  the  sacrifice  on  the 


i  "  Of  all  the  Prophetic  Types,  says  Mr.  Davison,  this  one,  in  the 
commanded  sacrifice  of  Isaac,  appears  to  be  among  the  most  significant. 
It  stands  at  the  head  of  the  dispensation  of  Eevealed  Keligion,  as  reduced 
into  Covenant  with  the  people  of  God  in  the  person  of  their  Founder  and 
Progenitor.  Being  thus  displayed,  as  it  is,  in  the  history  of  the  Father 
of  the  Faithful,  it  seems  to  be  wrought  into  the  foundations  of  Faith. 
In  the  surrender  to  Sacrifice  of  a  beloved  son,  the  Patriarchal  Church 
begins  with  an  adumbration  of  the  Christian  reality." — Inquiry  into 
Primitive  Sacrifice.  Davison's  Remains,  p.  150. 


80  Human  Sacrifices. 

Cross  the  difference  of  scope  and  design  in  regard  to 
atonement  leaves  still  a  common  external  ground  of 
surrender ;  and  the  outward  action  or  representation 
contained  in  the  former,  of  a  father  offering  up  his 
only  son  upon  the  altar  of  wood,  fulfils  all  the  outward 
requirements  of  a  type.  The  lifting  up  of  the  serpent 
in  the  wilderness  was  not  propitiatory,  but  there  was 
in  it  and  the  propitiatory  sacrifice  on  the  Cross  the 
common  principle  of  restoration  proceeding  from  a 
certain  action,  such  action  being  first  apprehended  by 
faith ;  and  the  outward  representation  contained  in 
the  lifting  up  of  the  serpent  had  the  outward  likeness 
required  for  a  type. 

But  it  may  be  asked — Was  it  simply  a  curious  * 
coincidence  that  the  surrounding  nations  offered  up 
human  sacrifices,  and  that  Abraham  offered  up  a 
human  sacrifice  ?  The  answer  is  that  the  external 
resemblance  is  not  fortuitous,  but  that  the  two  are 
really  connected  by  the  common  principle  of  sacrifice 
or  surrender.  First,  the  heathen  recognised  the  prin- 
ciple of  sacrifice  in  general,  or  the  giving  up  of 
something  precious,  as  a  mark  of  devotion  to  the 
deity  ;  and  this  principle  is  common  to  the  heathen 
and  to  the  Jewish  and  Patriarchal  sacrifices  in 
general.  Secondly,  human  sacrifices  were  a  mon- 
strous and  extravagant  expression,  but  still  an  ex- 
pression, of  this  principle.  They  proceeded  upon  the 
assumption  that  human  life  was  the  most  valuable  of 
all  things,  and  especially  that  a  child  was  the  most 
precious  possession  of  a  father,  from  which  it  appeared 
to  follow  that  such  a  sacrifice  was  in  place  in  extra- 


Human  Sacrifices.  81 

ordinary  emergencies.  This  principle  of  self-sacrifice 
then,  and  in  the  very  form  of  the  sacrifice  of  a  son,  is 
common  to  the  heathen  human  sacrifices  and  to 
Abraham's  sacrifice  of  Isaac.  But  when  one  common 
element  has  been  admitted,  the  difference  is  such  as 
to  completely  separate  the  two  from  each  other  as 
religious  acts  ;  the  one  being  only  a  trial  of  faith,  the 
other  the  propitiation  of  an  angry  divinity. 

Such  are  the  two  hypotheses  which  have  occu- 
pied our  attention  with  regard  to  the  act  of  the 
sacrifice  of  Isaac.  There  is  the  explanation  of  the 
act,  as  an  act  of  taking  away  the  life  of  another,  which 
was  given  in  the  last  Lecture,  and  there  is  the  explana- 
tion of  it  as  a  human  sacrifice,  in  agreement  with  the 
cruel  superstitious  custom  of  the  day,  in  heathen 
countries.  The  explanation  which  was  given  in  the 
last  Lecture  was,  that  the  conceptions  of  the  day,  with 
respect  to  one  man  as  being  the  property  of  another,— 
the  subject  of  the  monarch,  the  son  of  the  father,— 
authorised  the  act  in  obedience  to  a  miracle,  inas- 
much as,  with  such  conceptions  of  human  rights  and 
human  individuality,  there  was  no  counter  internal 
evidence  against  the  act  to  counterbalance  the  miracle 
in  command  of  it.  This  explanation  makes  no  differ- 
ence in  the  personal  character  or  prophetic  rank  of 
Abraham ;  and  only  supposes  in  him  the  ideas  of  the 
age  in  which  he  lived,  of  the  political  order ;  such  as 
affect  the  independent  rights  and  situation  of  the 
individual  man.  It  only  does  not  suppose  in  Abraham 
a  modern  estimate  and  a  modern  standard  of  those 
rights,  such  as  in  the  Patriarch  of  that  age  would  have 

G 


82  Human  Sacrifices. 

been  an  anachronism.  But  the  hypothesis  of  the  act 
being  a  human  sacrifice  in  the  ordinary  sense,  and  a 
copy  of  the  human  sacrifices  of  the  Canaanites,  mis- 
represents and  libels  the  Patriarch ;  degrades  him  into 
a  follower  and  disciple  of  an  idolatrous  and  abandoned 
race,  and  attributes  to  him  the  contamination  of  a 
sympathy  with  their  sanguinary  altars,  and  the  folly 
of  having  been  caught  by  the  snare  of  a  pagan  super- 
stition. Such  an  hypothesis  is  in  the  plainest  contra- 
diction to  his  whole  life  and  the  whole  scope  of  his 
trial. 


LECTURE   IV. 

EXTERMINATING   WARS. 

rPHE  argument  of  this  Lecture  is  in  substance  the 
same  as  that  of  the  second  Lecture,  only  applied 
to  Divine  commands  for  the  destruction  of  nations  and 
masses  of  men,  instead  of  to  a  Divine  command  for 
taking  away  the  life  of  a  single  person.  The  exter- 
minating wars  of  the  Israelites  also,  involving  as  they 
did  the  slaughter  of  whole  populations,  men,  women, 
and  children,  on  account  of  the  sin  of  the  nation,  in- 
volved the  principle  of  punishing  one  man  for  the  sin 
of  another ;  they  were  instances  both  of  punishing 
infants  on  account  of  their  fathers'  sins,  posterity  on 
account  of  forefathers'  sins,  and  some  adults  on 
account  of  other  adults.  The  command  of  Moses 
respecting  the  Canaanitish  nations  was,  "  Thou  shalt 
save  alive  nothing  that  breatheth  j"1  and  Joshua 
strictly  fulfilled  this  order.  He  smote  all  the  cities 
"  with  the  edge  of  the  sword,  and  utterly  destroyed  all 
the  souls  that  were  therein;  he  left  none  remaining/'2 
And  the  Divine  command,  through  the  mouth  of 
Samuel,  respecting  Amalek  was,  "  Slay  both  man  and 
woman,  infant  and  suckling,  ox  and  sheep,  camel  and 
ass."3  The  judicial  destruction  of  whole  families  was 
a  smaller  instance  of  the  same  principle.  Such  acts 

i  Dent.  22.  16.  2  Josh.  x.  39.  3  1  Sam.  xv.  3. 


84  Exterminating  Wars. 

done  in  obedience  to  a  Divine  command  are  strongly 
urged  by  unbelievers  as  objections  against  Old  Testa- 
ment morality.  It  is  replied  that  God  is  the  author 
of  life  and  death,  and  that  He  has  the  right  at  any 
time  to  deprive  any  number  of  His  creatures  of  life, 
whether  by  the  natural  instrumentality  of  pestilence 
or  famine,  or  by  the  express  employment  of  man  as 
his  instrument  of  destruction.  And  this  as  an  abstract 
defence  is  unquestionably  true ;  nor  can  it  be  denied 
that  as  soon  as  a  Divine  command  to  exterminate 
a  whole  people  becomes  known  to  another  people, 
they  have  not  only  the  right,  but  are  under  the 
strictest  obligation  to  execute  such  a  command. 

But  there  is  this  great  distinction  between  God 
destroying  human  lives  by  natural  means,  and  using 
man  as  his  executioner  of  a  command  for  that  pur- 
pose— viz.,  that  whereas  natural  means  are  the  un- 
conscious executors  of  the  Divine  wish,  man  as  a 
reasonable  being,  with  understanding  and  will,  is 
bound,  in  the  first  place,  to  ascertain  that  it  is  the 
Divine  wish  before  he  executes  it.  In  what  way,  then, 
is  a  Divine  command  for  the  destruction  of  a  whole 
nation,  innocent  and  guilty  alike,  made  known  to  the 
destroying  nation  ?  By  the  evidence  of  miracles  it  is 
replied,  and  replied  with  truth  ;  but  some  distinction  is 
still  wanted  in  dealing  with  this  subject.  For  in  the 
present  day  would  a  miracle  be  sufficient  authority  to 
us  to  do  acts  such  as  those  which  were  done  upon  the 
true  authority  of  miracles  under  the  older  dispensation  ? 
Would  miracles  be  a  warrant  to  us  now  to  destroy 
a  whole  nation,  putting  to  death  men,  women,  and 


Exterminating  Wars.  85 

children ;  or  to  deprive  a  whole  family  of  life  on 
account  of  some  sinful  act  committed  by  the  father  ? 
It  will  be  acknowledged  that  they  would  not  be  ;  we 
should  feel  it  impossible  that  God  would  really 
command  us  to  do  such  acts  as  these  now,  what- 
ever commands  He  may  have  given  in  former  ages  ; 
and  we  should  put  aside  the  authority  of  such 
miracles,  as  designed,  even  if  they  were  real,  to  test 
our  faith,  not  to  make  us  do  the  acts  in  question.  For 
a  miracle  is  not  represented  in  Scripture  as  absolute 
evidence  of  a  command  from  God ;  rather  it  is  ex- 
pressly represented  as  not  being.  As  evidence  it  lies 
under  checks  and  conditions,  in  the  absence  of  the 
fulfilment  of  which  it  is  not  evidence,  but  trial.  And 
in  this  light,  in  which  it  is  thus  directly  contemplated 
in  the  Bible,  we  should  regard  a  miracle  now,  which 
professed  to  be  the  warrant  of  a  Divine  command  to 
perform  acts  of  ^discriminating  punishment,  and 
wholesale  slaughter  of  the  innocent  and  guilty  alike. 

But  if  miraculous  evidence  was  properly  proof  to 
the  Israelites  of  a  Divine  command  to  exterminate 
certain  nations,  but  would  not  be  sufficient  proof  of 
such  a  command  to  us  now,  that  must  be  occasioned 
by  some  difference  of  conceptions  in  a  former  age  and 
in  the  present,  in  consequence  of  which  such  a  com- 
mand was  adapted  for  proof  by  miracles  in  a  former 
age,  and  is  not  adapted  for  that  proof  now ;  was  not 
an  incongruous  or  incredible  command  to  the  people 
to  whom  it  was  given,  but  would  be  to  us. 

One  explanation,  then,  that  will  be  given  of  this 
difference  will  be  that  the  Gospel  law  is  a  law  of  love, 


86  Exterminating  Wars. 

and  that  acts  of  vengeance  and  destruction  which 
were  appropriate  in  retribution  of  sin  in  a  less  ad- 
vanced age,  and  were  the  natural  expression  of  hostility 
to  evil  in  that  age,  are  wholly  out  of  place  under  a 
dispensation  which  enjoins  as  its  leading  precepts 
charity  and  resignation,  and,  instead  of  resisting  evil, 
the  bearing  all  things  and  the  enduring  all  things. 
When  a  Samaritan  village  would  not  receive  our  Lord, 
His  disciples,  James  and  John,  when  they  saw  this, 
said,  "  Lord,  wilt  thou  that  we  command  fire  to  come 
down  from  heaven,  and  consume  them,  even  as  Elias 
did  ? "  That  was  the  spirit  of  the  old  law.  But  our 
Lord  replied  that  they  were  now  to  be  of  another 
spirit.  "  He  turned  and  rebuked  them,  and  said,  Ye 
know  not  what  manner  of  spirit  ye  are  of;  for  the 
Son  of  man  is  not  come  to  destroy  men's  lives,  but  to 
save  them."1 

But  though  this  is  a  most  important  distinction  in 
the  standard  of  Judaism  and  of  Christianity,  it  is  not 
the  whole  of  the  distinction  between  them ;  for  we 
plainly  see  that  the  acts  to  which  we  refer, — the 
destruction  of  whole  nations,  children  included,  for 
the  sins  of  the  adult  portion,  and  the  infliction  of 
death  upon  whole  families  for  the  personal  sins  of  their 
heads, — are  not  only  contrary  to  the  law  of  love,  but 
contrary  also  to  our  idea  of  justice.  When  we  com- 
pare the  Gospel  era  with  the  condition  of  the  human 
mind  antecedent  to  it,  we  find  that  there  has  been  not 
only  a  revelation  of  the  principle  of  love,  but  that  there 
has  been  also  a  revelation  of  the  idea  of  justice  too  ; 

1  Luke  ix.  54,  55,  56. 


Exterminating  Wars.  87 

that  that  idea  has  been  developed,  sharpened,  and 
defined  in  the  human  mind ;  so  that  the  idea  of  justice 
would  be  now  an  absolute  bar  to  the  execution  of 
certain  proceedings,  against  which  it  did  not  act  as 
such  an  absolute  barrier  in  a  former  age  of  the  world. 
The  defective  sense  of  justice,  then,  in  those  early 
ages,  arose  from  the  defective  sense  of  individuality. 
The  idea  of  justice  could  not  be  complete  or  exact 
before  the  idea  of  man  was,  for  justice  implies  a  proper 
estimate  of  the  being  about  whom  it  relates,  and  with 
whom  it  deals.  But  the  idea  of  man,  the  conception  of 
human  individuality,  that  each  man  is  an  independent 
being  in  himself,  was  only  imperfectly  embraced  in 
those  ages.  Man  was  regarded  as  an  appendage  to 
man,  to  some  person  or  some  body,  and  therefore  the 
idea  of  man  being  defective,  the  idea  of  justice  was 
defective  too.  Hence  arose,  then,  those  monstrous 
forms  of  civil  justice  in  the  East,  in  which  the  wife 
and  the  children  were  included  in  the  same  punish- 
ment with  the  criminal  himself,  as  being  part  of  him. 
The  idea  was  not  always  acted  upon,  nor  did  it  form 
part,  as  far  as  one  can  judge,  of  the  common  routine  of 
justice ;  indeed  it  would  have  caused  the  depopulation 
of  countries  if  it  had  ;  but  it  was  always  at  hand  to  be 
brought  into  use  if  wanted.  The  punishment  of  chil- 
dren for  the  sins  of  the  fathers  was,  we  may  say, 
incorporated  into  the  civil  justice  of  the  East,  and  was 
part  of  its  traditional  civil  code  :  it  was  not  an  every- 
day process  in  the  courts,  but  the  principle  of  it  existed 
in  the  law,  and  was  resorted  to  on  special  occasions, 
when  a  great  impression  had  to  be  made.  Not  that 


Exterminating  Wars. 

the  offences  which,  were  selected  for  the  examples  of 
this  mode  of  retribution  were  chosen  upon  any  prin- 
ciple, for  they  seem  to  have  followed  the  caprice  of  the 
monarch.  But  they  were  such  as,  according  to  this 
irregular  standard,  were  heinous  crimes ;  and  the  ap- 
plication of  this  extreme  penalty  seems  to  have  carried 
the  authority  and  weight  of  law,  and  to  have  been 
recognised  by  custom  and  popular  opinion,  and  not 
to  have  been  a  simply  arbitrary  and  tyrannical  act 
of  the  monarch.  Such  was  the  character  of  Nebu- 
chadnezzar's sentence  upon  all  the  blasphemers  of  the 
true  God,  to  whom  he  had,  after  the  miraculous  sal- 
vation of  the  three  servants  of  God,  pronounced  his 
adhesion ;  the  sentence,  viz.,  that  all  such  persons 
should  "  be  cut  in  pieces,  and  their  houses  made  a 
dunghill;"1  i.e.,  that  their  families  should  perish  with 
them.  Nor,  when  Darius  punished  the  malignant 
accusers  of  Daniel  with  the  very  death  intended  for 
the  accused,  and  included  their  wives  and  children  in  it, 
does  he  appear  to  have  done  anything  more  than  what 
the  Oriental  code  of  justice  fully  sanctioned.  It  was 
the  sentence  of  a  monarch  who  especially  respected 
law  and  legal  tradition,  and  did  not  make  his  own  wil] 
his  rule ;  a  monarch  who  had  evidently  a  strong  sense 
of  justice  in  his  nature,  a  sympathy  with  the  oppressed 
and  ill  used,  a  respect  for  holy  men,  a  pious  and  devout 
temper.  Nor  are  these  two  cases  evidently  more  than 
samples  of  a  general  and  established  method  of  punish- 
ment, though  it  was  not  an  ordinary  but  an  extra- 
ordinary act  of  civil  justice,  regarded  perhaps  somewhat 

1  Daniel  ill  29. 


Exterminating  Wars.  89 

in  the  same  light  in  which  our  forefathers  regarded 
attainder. 

These  were  the  fruits  of  the  idea  that  one  man 
belonged  to  another,  was  part  of  another.    The  human 
appurtenances  of  the  man  were  nobodies  in  themselves, 
they  had  no  individual  existence  of  their  own,  their 
punishment  was   a   shadow  as  it  affected  them,  be- 
cause their  own  nonentity  neutralised  it ;  the  person 
punished  was  the  hateful  criminal  himself,  who  was 
destroyed  in  his  children.     The  guarantee  was  given 
in  this  extended  form  of  justice  that  no  part  of  him 
escaped.     Justice  got  the  whole  of  him.     The  victim 
in  himself,  and  in  all  his  members,  was  crushed  and 
extinguished.     In  the  age's  blindness  and  confusion  oi 
ideas,  people  did  not  really  seem  to  know  where  the 
exact  personality  of  the  criminal  was,  and  where  it  was 
to  be  got  hold  of;  whether,  in  the  locality  of  himself, 
was  himself  only,  or  some  other  person  or  persons  also 
as  well.     They  could  not  hit  the  exact  mark  to  their 
own  satisfaction,  so  they  got  into  their  grasp  both  the 
man  himself  and  every  one  connected  with  him,  to 
make  sure.     If  they  did  this,  if  they  collected  about 
the  criminal  everything  that  belonged  to  him — wives, 
children,  grandchildren,  dependants,  servants,  house- 
hold, the  whole  growth  of  human  life  about  him,  and 
destroyed  it  all,  they  were  certain  that  they  punished 
him,  and  the  whole  of  him.    The  total  of  the  individual 
was  there,  and  justice  was  consummated. 

But,  again,  this  defective  idea  of  human  individu- 
ality had  another  result  besides  that  which  affected  the 
personality  of  man ;  it  had  an  effect  upon  the  sense 


QO  Exterminating  Wars. 

of  justice  itself,  as  a  feeling  of  nature ;  it  let  loose 
exaggerated  and  extravagantly  developed  justice  as  a 
passion,  an  affection,  and  an  emotion  of  the  mind. 

We  are  accustomed  to  represent  Justice  as  neutral 
and  impartial,  holding  the  scales.  It  is  so  in  the  de- 
partment of  evidence,  because  a  criminal  is  not  a 
criminal  till  he  is  proved  to  be  one.  But  guilt  once 
proved,  and  standing  in  its  own  colours  before  us, 
justice  takes  a  side;  she  is  a  partisan  and  a  foe;  she 
becomes  retributive  justice,  and  desires  the  punishment 
of  guilt.  Justice  then  becomes  an  appetite  and  a  pas- 
sion, and  not  a  discriminating  principle  only.  We  see 
this  in  the  natural  and  eager  interest  which  the  crowd 
takes  in  the  solemn  proceedings  of  our  courts, — in  the 
relish  with  which  they  contemplate  the  judge  in  his 
chair  of  state ;  confiding  in  him  as  the  guardian  of 
innocence  and  avenger  of  guilt;  and  the  satisfac- 
tion with  which  the  final  sentence  upon  crime  is  re- 
ceived, resembles  the  satisfaction  of  some  bodily  want 
— hunger,  or  thirst,  or  desire  for  repose.  The  hold 
which  religion  has  upon  mankind  is  due  in  large 
measure  to  the  justice  of  religion.  She  promises  one 
day  to  fulfil  the  vision,  and  realise  the  dream  in  every 
simple  mind,  of  a  general  setting  to  rights,  when  every- 
body will  have  his  due.  It  is  evident  that  justice  is  a 
craving  of  our  nature,  and  rests  in  the  punishment  of 
the  guilty  as  an  end  desirable  in  itself.  It  is  appeased 
when  it  attains  this  object,  and  feels  a  tormenting  void 
when  it  fails  of  it. 

But  justice,  as  an  appetite  and  a  passion,  is  subject 
to  the  same  extravagances  and  excesses  to  which 


Exterminating  Wars.  91 

passion  in  general  is  subject.  There  is  in  all  passion 
an  innate  tendency  to  the  unreasonable,  which  breaks 
out  under  peculiar  excitements.  Even  what  we  call 
sentiment  has  elements  of  treason  in  its  way  of 
fastening  upon  things  ; — habits,  which  are  reasonable 
indeed  so  far  as  they  are  human,  but  on  the  other 
hand  cannot  be  reconciled  with  pure  reason.  What, 
e.g.,  is  the  whole  internal  influence  of  association  but  a 
kind  of  unreasonableness  ?  "We  are  more  than  usually 
affected  by  a  particular  event  on  the  recurring  day  of 
the  year.  But  why  ?  What  has  happened  ?  The  earth 
has  rolled  so  many  times  upon  its  axis.  And  what  has 
that  to  do  with  the  event  ?  Nothing.  We  visit  the 
place  where  some  great  man  was  born,  or  died,  or 
where  he  did  some  notable  act.  Here  Caesar  landed, 
here  Hannibal  fought,  here  Becket  died,  here  Charles  V. 
retired,  here  Shakespeare  was  born.  But  what  has 
place  to  do  with  the  significance  of  the  act  or  the 
suffering,  the  birth  or  the  death  ?  Nothing.  A  man 
must  be  born  somewhere,  and  die  somewhere,  and  act 
in  some  place  or  other.  These  are  accidents  which  do 
not  touch  the  substance  of  these  events.  Are  we  any 
nearer  the  person  or  his  act  because  we  stand  on  the 
spot  where  he  did  it  ?  No  :  the  person  and  the  place 
are  divided  by  an  infinite  interval  from  each  other ; 
yet  we  treasure  these  local  connections,  and  feel  our- 
selves placed  in  a  kind  of  vicinity  to  an  historical  per- 
sonage by  entering  the  house  where  he  was  born. 

If  quiet  sentiment  or  feeling  then  has  constitu- 
tional elements  of  imreason  in  it,  what  must  be  the 
case  with  strong  passion  ?  It  is  a  known  characteristic 


92  Exterminating  Wars. 

of  passion  that  it  makes  objects  for  itself;  that  when 
natural  objects  are  not  at  hand  on  which  to  expend 
itself,  it  vents  itself  upon  others  which  it  creates  for 
the  occasion.  This  is  a  well-known  effect  in  the  case 
of  anger ;  a  passionate  man,  when  something  has 
vexed  him,  stamps  upon  the  ground,  or  tears  the  note 
which  contains  the  bad  news  into  shreds,  or  kicks 
away  a  stone  at  his  feet,  as  if  he  would  hurt  something 
or  other,  even  in  semblance ;  anything  does  for  an 
object.  "  The  soul  being  agitated  and  discomposed," 
says  Montaigne,  "  is  lost  in  itself  if  it  has  not  some- 
thing to  encounter,  and  therefore  always  requires  an 
object  to  aim  at  and  keep  it  employed.  The  soul  in 
the  exercise  of  its  passions  rather  deceives  itself  by 
creating  a  false  and  fantastical  subject,  even  contrary 
to  its  own  belief,  than  not  to  have  something  to  work 
upon.  After  this  manner  brute  beasts  spend  their  fury 
upon  the  stone  or  weapon  that  has  hurt  them,  and  are 
ready  to  tear  themselves  to  pieces  for  the  injury  they 
have  received  from  another.  "What  causes  of  the  mis- 
fortunes that  befall  us  do  we  not  ourselves  invent  ? 
The  hair  which  you  tear  off  by  handfuls,  and  that 
bosom  which  you  smite  with  so  much  indignation  and 
cruelty,  are  no  way  guilty  of  the  unlucky  stroke 
which  has  killed  your  dear  brother :  quarrel  with 
something  else.  Livy,  speaking  of  the  Eoman  army 
in  Spain,  says  that  for  the  loss  of  two  brothers,  the  great 
captains  Flere  omnes  repent  e,  et  off  ensure  capita; 
all  wept  and  beat  their  foreheads  :  but  this  is  a  com- 
mon practice.  And  the  philosopher  Bion  said  plea- 
santly of  the  king  who  plucked  off  the  hair  of  his 


Exterminating  Wars.  93 

head  for  sorrow,  '  Does  this  man  think  that  baldness 
is  a  remedy  for  grief  ? '  Who  has  not  seen  gamesters 
bite  and  gnaw  their  cards,  and  swallow  the  dice,  in 
revenge  for  the  loss  of  their  money  ?  Xerxes  lashed 
the  sea,  and  wrote  a  challenge  to  Mount  Athos ! 
Cyrus  set  a  whole  army  several  days  at  work  to 
revenge  himself  on  the  river  Gnidus  for  the  fright  it 
had  put  him  in  when  he  was  passing  over  it ;  and 
Caligula  demolished  a  very  beautiful  palace,  for  the 
confinement  his  mother  had  there." x 

We  see  this  spirit  exhibited  in  the  funereal  cere- 
monies of  ancient  times,  and  the  tributes  paid  to  the 
memory  of  the  dead.  These  became  in  time  indeed 
formalities  and  grand  shows,  matters  of  family  or 
regal  pride  rather  than  the  heart,  yet  they  had  their 
origin  in  real  feeling.  One  can  imagine  indeed  how 
an  imperious  will  that  had  never  yet  been  thwarted, 
and  ruled  its  own  world  with  an  absolute  sway,  would 
feel  upon  the  sudden  loss  of  a  beloved  favourite — 
wife,  sister,  or  friend, — that  had  been  all  in  all  to  it ; 
when  for  the  first  time  it  encountered  an  impassable 
barrier,  and  longed  for  the  irrecoverable.  This  sense 
of  void  in  the  sufferer's  mind  must  be  relieved  in 
some  way  :  he  cannot  acquiesce  in  impotence,  he  must 
struggle  ;  he  must  reach  forward  somewhere  to  supply 
the  room  of  what  is  gone  ;  he  must  do  something  in 
order  to  hide  from  himself  that  he  can  do  nothing. 
He  vents  himself  then  in  a  vast  expenditure  of  bar- 
barous and  irrelevant  action ;  he  sacrifices  attendants 

1  Montaigne's  Essays — "  How  the  soul   discharges  itself  on  false 
objects,"  etc.,  etc. 


94  Exterminating  Wars. 

and  followers  at  the  funeral  pile  ;  others  are  unworthy 
of  life  when  the  loved  one  has  departed ;  and  life  is 
the  most  valuable  thing,  and  therefore  a  fit  treasure 
to  throw  away,  and  send,  as  it  were,  after  the  dead. 
Such  a  death  is  to  him  many  deaths;  it  ought  to  cause 
other  deaths  ;  it  ought  not  to  be  single  and  stand 
alone.  He  encloses  one  death  then  in  a  thousand ; 
he  loads  the  earth  with  some  gigantic  sepulchral 
fabric  to  express  the  largeness  of  his  loss.  He  thus 
grasps  with  outstretched  hand  after  some  object  to 
fill  the  vacuum  within ;  he  beats  the  air,  and  his 
baulked  desire  goes  off  into  an  immense  waste  of 
energy,  which  pleases  him  because  it  is  waste  ;  it  is 
expressive  on  that  very  account ;  his  grief  indulges  in 
all  useless  things,  in  vast  margins,  in  excesses,  in 
superfluities,  and  costly  emptiness.  \^ — 

Love,  grief,  and  passion,  in  general  being  thus 
liable  to  excesses,  justice,  as  an  appetite  and  passion, 
is  liable  to  the  same.  It  tends  under  excitement  to 
make  objects  for  itself.  And  so  Oriental  justice  did. 
It  went  out  into  margins,  excesses,  superfluous  sur- 
plusses  of  retribution ;  other  lives  went  to  this  ap- 
petite over  or  above  that  of  the  criminal,  and  justice 
used  human  beings  as  a  material  of  expression,  as  one 
would  employ  a  look,  a  gesture,  a  motion ;  it  killed  a 
thousand  men  merely  as  a  mode  of  tearing  the  hair, 
and  beating  the  breast.  It  refused  to  be  curtailed 
and  checked,  or  to  stop  with  the  criminal  himself ;  it 
went  into  a  crowd  of  extras  and  appendages.  It  was 
this  ancient  notion  of  justice  that  came  out  on  great 
occasions ;  it  was  then  poor  work  to  punish  only  one 


Exterminating  Wars.  95 

man ;  this  grand  appetite  must  have  more  food,  more 
material ;  there  was  something  excessive  in  the  very 
nature  of  justice,  which  passed  beyond  the  person  of 
the  criminal  and  claimed  all  his  family  and  house ;  it 
was  essentially  an  overflowing  thing,  refusing  to  be 
fixed  by  the  boundary  of  its  immediate  object,  and 
pressing  onwards  by  its  own  force  and  intensity  to 
others  beyond.  -Connection  by  blood  with  the  guilty 
agent  was  enough  to  reflect  his  crime ;  the  passion 
was  too  hotly  engaged  in  the  pursuit  to  distinguish 
the  nature  of  the  association,  and  retribution  became 
extermination.  "Wild  justice  thus,  like  an  over- 
wrought passion,  made  objects  for  itself.  Had  a 
designing  set  of  courtiers  conspired  foully  against 
Daniel  ?  Let  no  member  of  the  guilty  men  escape  ; 
throw  them  and  their  wives  and  children  to  the  lions. 
Has  wicked  Haman  plotted  the  massacre  of  the  Jews  ? 
It  is  not  enough  that  Haman  himself  should  hang  on 
a  gallows  fifty  cubits  high  ;  let  his  ten  sons  hang  with 
him.  Justice  was  anger,  and  gave  itself  all  the  liber- 
ties and  privileges  of  the  angry  man  ;  the  angry  man 
of  the  stage,  whose  idea  is  that  his  passion  to  be  real 
and  honest,  thorough  and  true,  should  blunder,  should 
make  mistakes,  and  hit  the  wrong  man. 

Aristotle  discusses  the  passion  of  anger  with  his 
own  characteristic  shrewdness  and  acuteness,  and  with 
as  much  of  the  humorist  as  of  the  philosopher.  He 
is  indulgent  to  its  mistakes,  and  tender  to  its  excesses, 
treating  the  affection  somewhat  as  a  comic  writer 
would  treat  the  character  of  an  honest  quick-tempered 
man  in  a  play.  Anger  with  him  is  the  man  in  the 


g6  Exterminating  Wars. 

farce,  who  is  always  making  blunders,  and  mistaking 
one  thing  for  another,  but  in  a  way  which  provokes  a 
smile  rather  than  indignation.  The  affection  has  in 
his  view  an  intrinsic  proneness  to  misunderstanding 
and  misconception,  which  he  pardons,  though  the  in- 
stances which  he  gives  are  those  which  we  would 
not  so  easily  condone.  "The  intemperance  of  anger,"  he 
says,  "  is  not  so  bad  as  that  of  the  appetites ;  for  anger 
appears  to  hear  reason,  but  to  mistake  it,  like  a  too 
quick  servant,  who,  before  he  has  heard  out  what  is 
said,  runs  off,  and  then  makes  a  mistake  in  his  errand; 
or  as  a  dog  barks  at  a  knock  before  he  knows  whether 
it  is  a  friend's.  So  anger,  in  consequence  of  the  heat 
and  quickness  of  its  nature,  hearing  but  not  hearing 
what  is  said,  goes  off  to  revenge  itself;  for  anger 
reasons  that  this  being  an  insult  or  a  slight,  it  must 
punish  the  man;  whereas  appetite  rushes  by  mere 
instinct  to  enjoyment.  So  that  anger  follows  reason 
in  a  way,  whereas  appetite  does  not ;  the  one  is  in  a 
sort  of  way  conquered  by  reason,  the  other  by  its  own 
lust.  And,  moreover,  anger  is  more  constitutional  than 
lust,  as  one  thought  who  apologised  for  striking  his 
father ;  for,  says  he,  this  man  struck  his  father,  and 
he  his,  and  this  boy  here — pointing  to  him,  will  strike 
me  when  he  is  grown  up  ;  for  it  is  our  nature — crvy- 
yez>es  yap  'Y^M.V  :  and  one  who  was  dragged  by  his  son 
up  to  the  door  of  the  house,  bid  him  stop  there ;  for 
that  he  himself  had  dragged  his  father  so  far,  but  not 
farther." l  If  we  extricate  the  philosophy  of  this  pass- 
age from  the  humour  of  it,  we  obtain  a  truth  which 

1  Ethics,  1.  vii.  c.  6. 


Exterminating  Wars.  97 

bears  upon  the  present  subject.  Aristotle  looks  upon, 
anger  as  following  an  apparent  law  of  reason  in  its 
errors  and  excesses,  which  seems  to  itself  only  its 
necessary  action.  Justice,  also,  as  being  anger  at 
crime,  puts  its  excesses  in  the  same  reasonable  point 
of  view  to  itself ;  it  follows  the  temper  of  the  general 
passion  of  anger.  Justice  simply  acting  as  a  passion 
goes  beyond  its  mark,  carries  punishment  beyond  the 
guilty  person,  hits  right  and  left,  and  brings  in  a 
crowd  that  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  crime,  under 
the  scope  of  the  sentence ;  justice  simply  as  anger 
votes  blood  to  be  crime,  and  implicates  a  whole  family 
in  the  act  of  its  head ;  it  becomes  a  systematic  blun- 
derer and  mistake-maker,  making  out  one  man  to  be 
another,  and  all  upon  a  kind  of  plan  and  a  show  of 
reason  to  itself,  by  which  it  determines  that  blood 
composes  a  sort  of  identity,  and  makes  a  family  one 
person :  an  idea  which  has  as  its  immediate  fruit 
wholesale  judicial  slaughter. 

But  what  enabled  Oriental  justice  to  run  out  into 
these  extravagances  as  an  appetite  and  passion,  was 
the  defective  sense,  to  begin  with,  of  human  indi- 
viduality. If  you  have  the  perfect  idea  of  human 
individuality — that  every  man  stands  on  his  own 
footing,  and  is  a  separate  person  from  anybody  else, 
justice  may  be  a  strong  passion  and  enthusiasm,  it 
may  desire  all  these  margins,  but  it  cannot  have 
them ;  it  is  under  checks  and  conditions  ;  it  cannot 
make  objects  for  itself,  but  must  take  those  which  are 
made  for  it ;  it  cannot  pass  beyond  the  real  criminal. 

It  cannot  slaughter  a  multitude  of  people  merely  as  a 

H 


98  Exterminating  Wars. 

grand  piece  of  extravagance,  a  substitution  for  oratory, 
a  broad  margin  and  surplus  of  emotion,  and  a  mode 
of  tearing  the  hair  and  beating  the  breast.  If,  there- 
fore, justice  as  a  passion  did  go  out  into  these  excesses, 
it  was  because  the  accurate  idea  of  human  individu- 
ality was  then  wanting  ;  because  the  idea  of  man  was 
not  truly  understood.  That  extravagant  and  mon- 
strous form  of  civil  justice,  then — the  inclusion  of  the 
children  in  the  punishment  of  the  father — was  occa- 
sioned by  this  defective  idea,  coupled  with  the  circum- 
stance that  the  defect  gave  scope  for  the  excesses  of 
justice,  regarded  as  an  appetite  and  passion  of  our 
nature.  The  spirit  which  produced  this  wild  justice 
was  not  a  wicked,  a  murderous,  or  a  cruel  spirit ;  it 
was  not  delight  in  the  infliction  of  pain ;  it  was  not 
objectless  love  of  destruction ;  it  was  the  undisciplined 
passion  of  justice  working  without  the  perception  of 
the  limit  which  man's  individuality  imposed  upon  it. 
It  aimed  loosely  and  confusedly  at  a  high,  a  good,  and 
a  necessary  object — the  punishment  of  crime. 

This  idea  of  justice,  then,  which  penetrated  the 
ancient  and  especially  the  Oriental  mind,  was  evi- 
dently also  the  idea  of  the  Israelitish  people  in  its 
earlier  history.  What  reason,  indeed,  is  there  why 
the  Jewish  nation  upon  such  a  point,  not  connected 
with  the  peculiar  object  of  their  revelation,  should 
not  partake  of  the  defective  notions  of  the  rest  of  the 
world  at  that  time  ;  why  the  defective  idea  of  human 
individuality,  and  the  judicial  standard  which  sprang 
from  that  root,  should  not  extend  to  the  minds  of  the 
sacred  people ;  producing  exterminating  wars  and 


Exterminating  Wars.  99 

wholesale  judicial  punishments  ?  When  the  Divine 
command  was  given  to  destroy  a  whole  nation,  on 
account  of  the  wickedness  of  the  great  mass  in  it,  and 
a  whole  family  on  account  of  the  sin  of  the  head,  these 
were  in  fact  judicial  proceedings  natural  to  the 
Jewish  mind,  and  in  accordance  with  a  received 
standard  of  justice.  Justice,  by  means  of  this  release 
from  the  idea  of  individuality  and  man's  rights,  was 
set  at  liberty  to  act  as  a  passion ;  to  punish  wholesale, 
to  slaughter  whole  nations  for  the  sins  of  many  of  the 
nation,  to  extirpate  and  destroy,  upon  the  mere 
ground  of  connection  by  blood.  The  idolatries  and 
abominations  of  the  Canaanites  invited  vengeance, 
and  vengeance  did  not  confine  itself  to  accurate 
justice ;  it  expanded  into  the  extravagances  of  the 
unchecked  passion  of  justice,  moral  in  its  hatred  of 
evil,  but  without  clearness,  and  blind  and  dim  in  its 
notion  of  persons. 

But  there  is  this  great  distinction  between  the 
principle  of  punishment  for  the  father's  sins  as  it  was 
held  by  the  Jewish  people,  and  the  same  principle  as 
it  was  held  in  the  pagan  and  general  Oriental  world — 
viz.,  that  in  the  latter  the  judicial  principle  figures  as 
a  part  of  civil  ]aw,  coming  into  operation  whenever  a 
sufficiently  important  occasion  arises.  The  Persian 
monarch  flings  the  families  of  the  false  accusers  into 
the  lions'  den,  along  with  the  criminals  themselves,  as 
a  judicial  act  of  his  own,  and  belonging  of  right  to  a 
regal  tribunal  of  justice.  But  in  Israel  the  principle 
did  not  exist  as  a  part  of  regular  law,  but  only  as  a 
special  and  extraordinary  supplement  to  law,  when  God 


ioo  Exterminating  Wars. 

himself  commanded  it.  The  Jewish  law  forbade  magis- 
trates to  punish  the  children  for  the  fathers'  sins.  "  The 
fathers  shall  not  be  put  to  death  for  the  children,  neither 
shall  the  children  be  put  to  death  for  the  fathers ;  every 
man  shall  be  put  to  death  for  his  own  sin."1  The  punish- 
ment, then,  of  the  family  for  the  sin  of  the  head  was 
among  the  Jews  extra-legal,  and  stood  upon  a  religious 
ground  as  the  dictation  of  a  special  revelation.  But 
though  the  Jewish  mind  was  in  a  higher  state  than  the 
ordinary  Eastern  mind  on  this  subject,  as  the  very  fact 
of  confining  this  species  of  justice  to  Divine  command, 
and  excluding  it  from  a  human  court  and  ordinary 
law,  shows,  this  retributive  principle  had  still  a  place 
in  the  Jewish  mind  as  an  extraordinary  mode  of 
justice,  which  a  special  command  might  rouse  from 
a  dormant  state  into  action  in  a  particular  case.  It 
had  a  suspended  operation,  checked  by  a  peculiar 
religious  condition.  It  met  the  Divine  command  half- 
way, no  prepossession  being  felt  against  such  a  shape 
of  justice  as  an  extraordinary  one  ;  and  it  had  a  con- 
stant incipient  action  in  the  system,  though  it  was 
powerless  unless  it  was  taken  up  by  a  special  revela- 
tion of  the  Divine  will.  Such  was  the  divided  and 
modified  hold  of  this  ruder  form  of  justice  upon  the 
Jewish  mind  ;  not  so  strong  as  its  hold  upon  the 
Eastern  world  generally,  in  which  that  form  of  justice 
was  a  part  of  regular  law,  but  still  enough  so  to  give 
such  justice  a  popular  naturalness,  and  remove  all 
unfittingness  when  there  was  external  evidence  of  a 
Divine  command  to  execute  it ;  and  when  it  came 

1  Deut.  xxiv.  16. 


Exterminating  Wars.      ,  101 

before  them  as  a  grand  and  majestic  act  of  Him  who 
ordereth  all  things  according  to  His  own  sovereign  will. 
And  this  supplies  an  answer  to  a  question  which 
is  asked  with  respect  to  the  need  of  miraculous  inter- 
position for  the  sanction  of  this  extraordinary  species 
of  justice.  It  is  said  that  in  ages  in  which  this  was 
the  state  of  ideas,  that  is  to  say,  when  one  man  was 
in  the  mind  of  the  age  an  appendage  of  another,  and 
was  identified  with  a  parent  or  ruler  in  crime,  it  followed 
by  natural  reason  that  he  should  be  identified  with  him 
in  punishment;  and  that  one  of  these  extraordinary 
cases  would  be  wholesale  family,  and  the  other  whole- 
sale national  destruction.  What  need,  therefore,  to  the 
Jews,  it  is  asked,  of  any  special  Divine  command,  and 
with  it  of  miraculous  evidence,  to  warrant  such  acts, 
when  this  idea  of  justice  existed  to  begin  with  in  their 
minds  as  a  natural  idea  ?  What  impediment  was  there 
to  their  acting  upon  this  idea,  without  waiting  for  the 
special  authorisation  ?  Why  require  the  sanction  of 
a  miracle  for  these  acts,  if  the  popularly  received  idea 
of  justice  of  itself  allowed  and  sanctioned  them  ?  But 
an  idea  may  be  held,  and  yet,  with  reference  to  such  a 
question  as  this,  everything  may  depend  upon  the  mode 
and  measure  in  which  it  is  held.  Among  the  Jews 
what  was  that  mode  and  measure  ?  That  is  simply 
an  historical  question.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  the 
Jewish  mind  this  peculiar  principle  of  justice  existed 
in  a  modified  and  limited  form ;  ready  to  be  put  in 
execution  upon  a  special  Divine  call,  but  not  before. 
We  have  not  to  examine  the  state  of  mind  logically, 
but  to  take  the  fact.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  a 


IO2  Exterminating  Wars. 

special  authorisation  which,  put  in  force  this  justice 
in  the  case  of  Korah,  Dathan,  and  Abiram,  the  family 
of  Achan,  the  family  of  Saul,  as  well  as  in  the  larger 
case  of  the  extermination  of  the  Canaanites :  an 
authorisation  through  a  miracle  at  the  time,  or 
through  an  inspired  leader.  The  principle,  held  in- 
definitely elsewhere  in  the  early  ages  of  the  world, 
was  held  with  this  distinction  by  the  Jew.  But  such 
a  Divine  sanction  implied  miraculous  evidence  to  sup- 
port it.  And  thus  it  was  an  essential  characteristic 
of  this  extraordinary  justice  under  the  old  dispensa- 
tion, that  it  was  executed  under  such  miraculous 
warrant ;  this  was  a  fundamental  feature  of  it,  which 
entered  into  the  system,  and  furnished  a  moral  con- 
dition of  it. 

But  with  whatever  condition  this  idea  of  justice 
was  held  in  the  Jewish  mind,  when  we  have  the  fact 
that  it  was  held,  we  have  the  reason  why  the  Divine 
commands,  of  which  we  have  been  speaking,  were 
adapted  to  man  as  the  agent  for  their  execution  then, 
and  are  not  adapted  now ;  and  were  capable  of  proof 
by  the  evidence  of  miracles  then,  and  are  not  capable 
now ; — viz.,  that  the  imperfect  idea  of  justice  which 
then  existed  in  the  human  mind  opposed  no  resistance  to 
them  on  the  moral  side.  Suppose  a  Divine  command, 
professing  to  come  to  us  now  upon  the  evidence  of  a 
miracle,  that  we  were  to  kill  one  man  on  account  of 
the  crime  of  another  man,  a  family  of  children  on 
account  of  the  sin  of  their  father,  all  the  infants  of  a 
nation  on  account  of  the  wickedness  of  a  nation  as 
a  whole ;  it  is  plain  that,  in  the  first  place,  we  should 


Exterminating  Wars.  103 

be  divided  in  our  minds  between  two  contradictory 
evidences, — the  evidence  of  the  miracle  that  such  a 
command  came  from  God,  and  the  evidence  of  our  sense 
of  justice  that  it  could  not.  And  is  it  not  also  suffi- 
ciently plain,  in  the  next  place,  that  according  to  the 
Bible's  own  test  of  the  validity  of  miraculous  evidence, 
such  evidence  could  not  be  valid  proof  of  a  command 
having  come  from  God  when  in  opposition  to  our. 
moral  sense  ?  But  then  these  commands  had  no 
resistance  from  the  moral  sense  ;  they  did  not  look 
unnatural  to  the  ancient  Jew,  they  were  not  foreign 
to  his  standard ;  they  excited  no  surprise  or  perplexity ; 
they  appealed  to  a  genuine  but  rough  idea  of  justice, 
which  existed  when  the  longing  for  retribution  upon 
crime  in  the  human  mind  was  not  checked  by  the 
strict  sense  of  human  individuality.  Such  commands 
were  therefore  adapted  then  to  miraculous  proof; 
because  such  proof,  then  meeting  nothing  counter 
to  it  in  the  human  conscience,  possessed  its  natural 
weight  not  counterbalanced  or  neutralised.  Man  in 
the  first  ages  was  identified  with  some  individual  or 
body  external  to  him,  was  implicated  in  its  crimes, 
and  exposed  to  their  punishment ;  whereas  now  human 
individuality  is  understood,  and  society  is  penetrated 
with  the  true  conception  of  each  man  as  an  inde- 
pendent being,  with  an  existence  and  rights  of  his 
own. 


LECTURE    V. 

VISITATION    OF   THE   SINS    OF   THE 
FATHERS    UPON    THE   CHILDREN. 

T1THEN  in  a  later  age  we  have  to  separate  one  part 
*  *  of  the  Jewish  Law  from  another,  the  permanent 
part  from  the  temporary  part,  the  accommodation  to 
imperfect  morality  from  the  moral  truths ;  we  have 
to  argue  and  to  lay  down  some  position  on  the  subject 
which  includes  the  consequence  we  want.  But  in 
the  actual  dispensation  of  the  law ;  and  when  one  part 
was  separating  from  another  by  an  actual  change  and 
development,  no  argument  was  needed  on  the  subject. 
The  Law  naturally  and  of  itself  slipped  off  its  incon- 
gruous matter ;  all  that  was  not  perfectly  holy,  pure, 
and  righteous,  did  not,  ipso  facto,  belong  to  the  Law,  it 
was  rejected  as  something  that  came  from  another 
stock ;  and  if  it  had  been  confounded  hitherto  with 
the  Law,  it  was  time  that  the  partition  should  be  made, 
and  the  difference  of  the  two  materials  revealed.  Our 
Lord,  e.g.,  was  not  prevented  by  His  Divine  nature 
from  arguing  and  showing  forth  truth  by  a  logical 
process  ;  as  when  He  argued  for  the  resurrection  of  the 
dead  from  that  which  was  spoken  by  God — saying,  "  I 


Visitation  of  the  Sins  of  Fathers.  105 

am  the  God  of  Abraham,  and  the  God  of  Isaac,  and 
the  God  of  Jacob :  God  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead 
but  of  the  living/'1  But  in  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  which  is  the  great  trial  of  the  Law, — the 
examination  which  tests  the  purity  of  its  different  pre- 
cepts and  rules, — there  is  no  argument ;  but  the  alien 
parts  drop  off  of  themselves,  and  leave  the  residuum 
pure.  The  Law  tests  itself.  Does  the  enlightened  con- 
science condemn  anything  it  allows  or  commands  ?  By 
the  simple  condemnation  of  conscience  it  ceases  to 
belong  to  the  Law :  it  goes.  "  Ye  have  heard  that  it 
hath  been  said  of  old  time."  All  these  precepts  were 
the  litera  scripta  of  the  Law ;  they  are  there  in  black 
and  white ;  statute  law,  as  good  as  ever  was  impressed 
on  any  code.  But  it  all  goes,  from  the  original  assump- 
tion which  overrules  every  particular  statute,  that 
now  nothing  but  what  is  perfect  is  allowed  in  morals. 
"  Be  ye  therefore  perfect,  even  as  your  Father  which 
is  in  heaven  is  perfect."  If  there  is  anything  which 
is  a  falling  short,  which  goes  a  certain  way  but  not 
the  whole  way — as  in  the  imperfect  law  of  marriage, 
in  the  imperfect  law  of  love,  in  a  law  of  retaliation- 
it  is  assumed  that  the  essence  of  the  Law  is  not  all  this, 
and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  what  is  perfect  is  the 
Law.  We  know  nothing  henceforth  but  this  perfect 
Law  commanding  in  the  conscience. 

So  of  St.  Paul.  It  is  remarkable  that  with  all  the 
imperfections,  the  crudities,  the  coarse  legislation  which 
is  stamped  upon  the  Law,  the  Law  never  figures  in 
St.  Paul's  moral  estimate  except  as  perfect.  "The 

1  Matt.  xxii.  32. 


io6  Visitation  of  the  Sins  of 

Law  is  holy ;  and  the  commandment  holy,  and  just, 
and  good."  How  is  this  ?  except  that  ipso  facto  the 
Law  parts  with  everything  that  is  imperfect.  Nothing 
that  is  not  holy  can  be  part  of  the  Law.  It  is  an 
axiom  which  settles  everything.  We  hear  nothing  now 
of  the  exceptions  taken  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
against  the  fallings  short,  defects,  and  inequalities  of  the 
Mosaic  legislation;  but  that  is  because  these  have 
already  been  eliminated ;  and  because,  on  that  very 
account,  the  pure  residuum  is  constituted  the  Law,  and 
everything  that  is  imperfect  has  ipso  facto  dropped 
off  from  it.  The  Law,  then,  which  is  recognised  by  St. 
Paul  is  the  perfect  law  only.  He  knows  of  nothing 
else.  An  imperfect  law  is  an  absurdity.  The  Law 
entered  that  offence  might  abound ;  not  to  let  men  off, 
and  show  that  they  were  not  sinners  because  they  had 
a  very  easy  rule  given  them.  It  was  absolutely  neces- 
sary, then,  that  the  Law  must  be  pure  and  perfect. 
But  how  was  such  a  law  got,  but  by  the  old  Law 
casting  its  skin,  and  coming  out  in  a  new  and  perfect 
character  as  the  Law  of  God,  aspiring  to  the  full 
spiritual  morality?  It  is  to  be  observed  that  the  only 
dispute  which  engages  attention  in  St.  Paul  is  no  dis- 
pute respecting  the  morality  of  the  Law, — as  if  it  was 
doubted  whether  that  morality  were  quite  correct,  and 
were  not  clouded  by  mistakes  and  lowered  by  blemishes 
and  blots, — but  it  is  a  question  only  whether  that  Law 
can  be  fulfilled,  whether  the  human  conscience  is  able 
to  satisfy  it.  The  moral  demands  of  the  Law  are  in- 
satiable, we  cannot  mount  up  to  this  height,  Alps  on 

1  Romans  vii.  12. 


the  Fathers  upon  the  Children.  107 

Alps  arise,  and  we  are  involved  in  an  inextricable 
labyrinth  wherever  we  turn;  duties  and  obligations 
beset  us  with  impossible  claims,  which  cannot  be 
resisted,  and  yet  cannot  be  cleared.  This  is  the  diffi- 
culty, then,  in  the  doctrinal  scheme  of  St.  Paul ;  but  he 
does  not  think  that  the  Law  has  blotches  and  stains  ; 
there  is  no  apprehension  in  St.  Paul's  mind  that  the 
Law  is  not  good  enough  :  the  Law  is  spiritual,  but  I 
am  carnal ;  for  the  good  that  I  would  I  do  not,  but  the 
evil  that  I  would  not  that  I  do ;  the  Law  is  perfect, 
but  we  do  not  fulfil  it.  The  mistake  St.  Paul  fights 
against  is  not  obedience  to  a  carnal  law  so  full  of 
gross  imperfections ;  but  that  of  assuming  that  we  do 
and  can  obey  a  law  so  essentially  insatiable  in  its 
moral  claims,  and  which  exceeds  and  baffles  the  con- 
science ; — that  we  can  obey  a  law  so  spiritual. 

We  have  then  here  the  quick  and  summary 
process  by  which,  in  the  actual  emergency,  the  Law 
clears  itself — viz.,  by  casting  out  spontaneously 
the  objectionable  matter,  and  taking  the  high  ground 
that  whatever  is  not  self-evidently  holy  and  good 
does  not  belong  to  the  Law.  We  frame  long  argu- 
ments to  defend  the  Law  of  God  from  the  injustice  of 
punishing  children  for  the  sins  of  their  fathers,  but  if 
we  believe  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  it  is  all  done  with 
one  word — viz.  that  punishing  children  for  the  fathers' 
sake  cannot  belong  to  the  Law  of  God,  because  it  is 
unjust.  The  Law  of  God  vindicates  itself,  and  its  de- 
fence is  self-acting.  Thus  the  argument  is  the  simplest 
possible,  and  its  effect  is  complete.  •>  The  Law  comes  to 
us,  in  the  first  instance,  under  the  most  heinous  charges; 


io8  Visitation  of  the  Sins  of 

that  it  enjoins  hatred,  retaliation,  infringements  of 
the  marriage  law,  and  the  like ;  but  all  these  drop  off 
from  it  in  a  moment  upon  the  principle  of  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount.  The  instant  that  it  is  perceived  that 
these  are  wrong  things,  these  things  are  seen  not  to  be 
in  the  Law.  The  true  law  of  God  disowns  them ;  they  are 
only  in  it  because  of  the  hardness  of  men's  hearts ;  i.e., 
they  are  there  because  they  are  in  the  human  heart;  the 
true  site  of  the  evil  is  in  man.  And  so  the  punish- 
ment of  one  man  for  the  sin  of  another  is,  ipso  facto, 
rejected  by  the  law  of  justice.  Eetaliation  is  also 
rejected  by  the  law  of  love.  Both  are  therefore,  ipso 
facto,  cast  out  of  the  law  of  God.  This  is — all  of  it— 
a  spontaneous  operation;  it  is  a  self-acting  vindication. 
The  Law  of  God  clears  itself  by  one  act ;  and  from 
being  a  law  charged  with  gross  injustice  and  pollution, 
stands  forth  in  the  light  of  a  perfect  law.  The  Law  is 
holy;  and  the  commandment  is  holy,  and  just,  and  good. 
This  is  the  answer  that  St.  Paul  gives  to  the  charge 
that  the  Law  has  commanded  wrong  practices,  and 
placed  itself  in  the  wrong ;  the  answer  that  it  has  not 
done  so  because  it  is  the  Law  of  God. 

What  the  Deity  admits  into  his  Law  externally, 
because  the  hardness  of  men's  hearts  obliges  it,  and 
what  He  admits  into  it  because  it  is  His  will,  are 
things  absolutely  different.  Commands  are  not  of 
Divine  obligation  simply  because  they  are  externally 
commands  :  we,  e.g.,  see  commands  in  Scripture  which 
plainly  disclaim  the  Divine  source.  Thus  the  com- 
mand to  Balaam :  which  is  plainly  to  say — As  you 
want  to  go,  go ;  I  will  not  prevent  you  from  taking 


the  Fathers  upon  the  Children.  109 

the  course  you  are  bent  upon ;  you  have  set  your 
mind  upon  going  with  the  princes ;  take  your  own  way. 
So  the  command  of  our  Lord  to  Judas : — That  thou 
doest  do  quickly.  He  was  commanded  now  to  do  the 
act,  but  it  was  his  own  act  which  he  was  commanded 
to  do.  There  is  a  class  of  commands  which,  in  human 
transactions,  come  under  the  head  of  irony,  and  sig- 
nify— Now  you  have  been  so  long  a  time  wanting  to 
do  this,  and  applying  the  force  of  your  own  will  to 
the  attainment  of  this  purpose, — now  then  I  will  join 
you,  I  will  add  my  will  to  yours.  I  tell  you  to  do  it. 
Do  it,  and  take  the  consequences  of  it.  The  command 
is  half  command  and  half  threat.  Had  the  recipients 
of  it  the  slightest  idea  of  the  danger  which  really  re- 
sides in  such  an  order,  they  would  dread  it  more  than 
the  strongest  and  most  forcible  resistance  ;  but  instead 
of  this  they  catch  at  it,  value  it  as  if  it  were  just  the 
very  liberty  that  they  have  longed  for ;  and  swallow 
the  destructive,  and  justly  destructive,  permission. 
The  Scripture  principle  thus  was  laid  down  that  God 
commanded  according  to  the  state  of  mind  of  the  per- 
son ;  commanded  even  wickedness  ironically,  when  the 
state  of  a  man's  mind  was  wicked  and  obstinate  in  sin. 
Is  he  determined  on  a  covetous  self-aggrandising  career? 
bid  him  go  with  the  princes  of  Moab.  Is  he  eager  for 
the  reward  of  blood  ?  tell  him  to  get  it  quickly.  Does 
he  want  to  be  hardened  as  Pharaoh  did  ?  harden  him. 
But  a  distinction  must  be  drawn  between  this 
class  of  commands  given  in  judicial  anger, — com- 
mands to  do  wicked  and  corrupt  acts, — and  com- 
mands to  do  acts  of  rude  goodness  consonant  to 


no  Visitation  of  the  Sins  of 

the  imperfect  morality  of  the  times.  Such  com- 
mands as  these  are  not  given  in  anger,  but  only  in 
condescension  to  the  weakness  and  ignorance  of  man, 
who  cannot  rise  all  at  once  to  the  high  moral  stand- 
ard. But  such  commands  to  do  imperfect  moral  acts 
have  still  to  be  explained,  when,  in  a  later  age  and 
with  the  holiness  and  justice  of  the  Divine  Law  fully 
developed,  the  rough  incipient  stages  of  the  Divine 
dealings  with  man  come  into  discussion,  and  are 
scrutinised  from  a  lofty  moral  standard.  It  is  this 
that  constitutes  the  great  subject  of  Scripture  criti- 
cism, and  upon  which  the  apologetics  of  Scripture 
itself  centre.  The  apologetics  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  and  the  apologetics  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles,  relate 
to  the  defective  element  in  Scripture,  and  lay  down, 
with  respect  to  it,  that  the  Law  of  God  is  clear  from 
the  responsibility  of  it,  because  the  Law  of  God  never 
did  enjoin  it ;  i.e.,  what  was  really  the  •  Law  of  God. 
The  real  Law  of  God  was  all  good  :  the  evil  was  the 
condition  of  the  human  mind.  The  human  mind  only 
admitted  good  to  a  certain  extent.  It  was  faulty 
in  the  measure  of  that  admission  of  good,  but  the 
good  itself  was  not  the  worse ;  and  the  Law  of  God 
itself  was  cleared. 

We  see  then  that  the  imperfect  parts  of  the  Law 
slipped  off  naturally  from  the  old  stock,  as  the  Law 
entered  into  an  age  of  higher  morals ;  the  parts  relat- 
ing to  marriage,  divorce,  enmity,  retaliation,  had  been 
identified  with  the  Law  in  the  earlier  ages,  but  con- 
science rejected  them  as  conscience  advanced;  and 
when  conscience  rejected  them,  the  Law  also  itself  cast 


the  Fathers  upon  the  Children.  1 1 1 

them  off.  And  this  was  especially  the  case  in  the  instance 
of  the  law  of  punishment  of  children  for  the  sins  of 
the  fathers,  laid  down  in  the  Second  Commandment. 
The  Second  Commandment  was  explained  in  such  a 
way  as  that  the  punishment  of  children  for  the  sins 
of  the  fathers  was  wholly  relieved  from  the  literal 
sense  of  punishment,  and  became  the  infliction  of  evil 
and  pain  for  another  reason  than  that  of  punishment. 
And  this  change  was  by  a  natural  transition  in  the 
ideas  of  the  age.  The  Law  threw  off  its  old  Mosaic 
character.  The  idea,  i.e.,  of  children  being  guilty  of 
their  fathers'  sins  was  rejected,  and  consequently  of 
punishment  implying  in  its  true  sense  guilt.  With  the 
idea  of  guilt  that  of  punishment  was  also  dropped; 
and  this  idea  in  the  Second  Commandment,  understood 
in  its  first  and  natural  sense,  left  the  Gospel  code  by 
an  inevitable  separation, — in  virtue  of  the  perfection 
of  the  Gospel  not  being  able  to  bear  with  it. 

But  it  will  be  well  to  explain  the  mode  in  which  one 
interpretation  of  the  Second  Commandment  has  slid 
into  another,  and  to  elucidate  the  change  which  has 
come  over  it  more  fully  and  accurately. 

I  have  been  discussing  throughout  these  Lectures 
the  Old  Testament  fact  of  the  Divine  punishment  of 
children  for  the  sins  of  their  fathers;  and  I  have 
treated  the  fact  as  an  accommodation  to  a  rude  and 
barbarous,  but  in  its  foundation  moral,  sense  of  justice 
of  the  day.  But  now  the  question  may  be  asked — Do 
we  not  admit  a  law  of  God's  natural  providence  as 
going  on  now,  and  as  being  part  of  the  moral  govern- 
ment of  the  world,  which  we  call  Visiting  the  sins  of 


ii2  Visitation  of  the  Sins  of 

the  fathers  upon  the  children?  and  admit  it  not 
only  as  a  law  accommodated  to  a  moral  standard  of 
an  earlier  time,  but  as  of  force  now  and  always  in  the 
world  ?  Undoubtedly  we  do.  But  this  law  of  Pro- 
vidence is  not  to  be  confounded,  as  a  line  of  Divine 
action,  with  the  extraordinary  modes  of  proceeding  to 
which  we  have  been  referring.  "When  we  speak  of 
the  punishment  of  children  for  the  sins  of  the  fathers, 
as  a  law  of  Providence  now  going  on  in  the  world,  we 
give  a  judicial  name  to  a  course  of  proceeding  which  is 
not  in  reality  judicial ;  we  employ  a  phrase  for  conveni- 
ence sake,  not  intending  it  to  be  understood  literally, 
as  if  the  children  incurred  the  guilt  of  the  fathers'  sin, 
and  were  punished  judicially  for  it.  The  infliction  of 
evil  is  not  in  itself  punishment ;  it  is  only  punishment 
when  it  is  inflicted  upon  men  on  account  of  sin.  The 
destructions  of  which  we  have  been  speaking  were 
judicial,  because  they  were  expressly  inflicted  on 
account  of  sin  ;  those  who  would  not  otherwise  have 
died  were  put  to  death  for  sin — that  of  another  person ; 
the  sin  of  another  person  was  the  declared  and  published 
reason  for  the  infliction  of  death  upon  them.  But  the 
link  which  connects  the  sin  of  the  father  with  the  in- 
jured condition  of  the  children  under  the  law  of  provi- 
dence, is  not  a  judicial  but  a  physical  one.  The  one  is 
the  occasion  of  the  other ;  but  the  child  is  not  made  to 
suffer  by  the  Author  of  nature  upon  the  ground  that 
his  father  was  a  bad  man,  and  that  justice  requires 
the  punishment  of  the  son  for  that  fact.  The  tie 
which  unites  the  wickedness  of  the  one  with  the 
suffering  of  the  other,  is  the  tie  of  material  cause  and 


the  Fathers  upon  the  Children.  113 

effect.  The  law  of  natural  providence,  then,  which  we 
call  the  visitation  of  the  sins  of  the  fathers  upon  the 
children  requires  no  moral  defence,  because  it  is  not  a 
judicial  but  only  a  physical  process ;  the  children  are 
not  punished  on  account  of  their  fathers'  sins,  but  only 
suffer,  through  the  physical  medium  of  those  sins,  that 
temporal  loss  which  God  has  a  right  to  inflict  upon 
them  through  any  other  medium,  without  any  crimes 
of  their  fathers  at  all.  But  the  case  is  different  when, 
from  the  course  of  God's  natural  providence,  we  turn 
to  those  cases  in  the  Old  Testament  in  which  the 
express  force,  scope,  and  reason  of  judicial  punish- 
ment is  given  for  the  destruction  of  whole  families ; 
in  which  that  destruction  does  not  take  place  through 
the  physical  medium  of  those  crimes,  but  by  a 
positive  sentence  of  God,  inflicted  by  reason  of  and 
upon  the  ground  of  the  fathers'  sin.  Nor  are  the 
instances  adduced  of  visitation  of  the  fathers'  sins 
upon  the  children  under  the  law  of  natural  providence, 
precedents  to  justify  real  vicarious  punishments,  as 
those  instances  in  Scripture  are.  The  two  are  not 
parallel  cases ;  a  natural  cause  is  no  precedent  for  a 
moral  one,  a  sequence  of  nature  is  no  parallel  for  a 
penalty  of  justice.  Nor,  when  we  examine  the  mean- 
ing in  which  the  phrase — the  punishment  of  the 
children  for  the  sins  of  their  fathers — is  used  in  poetry, 
in  literature,  in  conversation,  when  allusion  is  made 
to  this  law  of  providence,  do  we  find  that  the  popular 
meaning  and  acceptation  of  the  phrase  implies  any- 
thing judicial.  Nobody  means  to  say  that  the  children 

are  guilty  of  the  sins  of  their  fathers,  and  therefore 

I 


1 14  Visitation  of  the  Sins  of 

punished  for  them,  which  alone  would  be  a  judicial 
infliction.  The  phrase  is  used  in  a  liberal  sense,  viz., 
that  the  sins  of  the  fathers  are  the  occasion  of  mis- 
fortune to  the  children ;  not  in  the  literal  sense  that 
misfortune  is  merited  by  the  children  on  account  of 
those  sins. 

Let  us  take  the  cases  which  are  appealed  to  as 
illustrations  of  this  law ;  they  are  such  as  the  follow- 
ing. A  man  by  a  course  of  sensual  dissipation  ruins 
his  bodily  health,  and  transmits  a  feeble  and  sickly 
constitution  to  his  children.  A  man  by  a  course  of 
reckless  extravagance  crumbles  away  his  estate,  and 
bequeaths  poverty  and  straitened  circumstances  to 
his  children.  A  man  by  a  course  of  criminal  acts, 
which  not  only  cover  him  with  infamy  but  perhaps 
lead  eventually  to  civil  punishment  and  even  to 
capital  punishment,  transmits  a  degraded  name  to  his 
children.  A  man,  from  simple  carelessness,  indolence, 
and  selfish  absorption  in  his  own  pleasures,  neglects 
the  education  of  his  children,  and  thus  transmits  the 
signal  misfortune  of  ignorance,  and  often,  what  is 
worse  than  ignorance,  a  low  and  coarse  standard  of 
morals  to  his  children.  But  is  there  anything  in  the 
literal  sense  judicial,  in  the  mode  in  which  the  sin 
and  the  inherited  punishment  are  connected  together 
in  these  cases?  That  is  to  say,  are  the  children  in 
any  of  these  cases  punished  as  deserving  such  punish- 
ment because  their  father  was  a  bad  man  ?  That  is 
not  the  idea  entertained.  The  connection  between  the 
father's  sin  and  the  children's  punishment  is  not  a 
moral  connection  in  any  of  these  cases,  nor  one  imply- 


the  Fathers  upon  the  Children.  115 

ing  moral  responsibility ;  it  is  a  simply  physical  link 
which  unites  the  wickedness  of  the  one  with  the  suffer- 
ing of  the  other.  The  case  is  that  the  father  by  his 
vices  produces  a  certain  material  condition  of  affairs, 
and  that  condition  of  affairs  existing,  the  children  have 
the  disadvantage  of  it.  If  the  father  have  squandered 
his  estate,  the  children  do  not  inherit  it ;  the  tie  which 
unites  these  two  facts  together  is  the  tie  of  cause  and 
effect  simply,  not  the  tie  of  a  providential  justice 
inflicting  the  loss  upon  the  children  because  they  deserve 
it.  Every  event  has  a  cause,  and  the  misfortunes 
which  happen  to  us  are  all  caused  by  something.  The 
cause  of  our  poverty  may  be  either  a  father's  profusion 
or  a  neighbour's  fraud,  and  the  cause  of  our  bad  health 
may  be  either  an  unfortunate  accident  or  an  inherited 
disease ;  we  no  more  merit  the  inherited  disease  than 
we  do  the  accident,  or  the  inherited  poverty  than  the 
fraudulently  caused  one. 

But  when  the  visitation  of  the  sins  of  the  fathers 
upon  the  children  is  interpreted  in  the  sense  of  Old 
Testament  history,  we  see  that  it  is  not  in  the  sense  in 
which  the  phrase  is  used  when  it  figures  as  a  law  of 
natural  providence,  and  when  it  is  employed  in  the 
cases  which  have  been  just  referred  to.  We  see  that 
there, — i.e.,  when  it  applies  to  the  execution  of  the 
extraordinary  sentences  in  the  Old  Testament, — it  is 
not  by  a  mere  physical  medium  that  the  punishment 
is  inflicted,  but  by  a  distinctly  judicial  medium.  A 
crime  was  committed  by  Achan,  and  for  the  crime 
which  Achan  committed  the  family  are  punished  by 
death.  That  is  to  say,  the  family  are  treated  as  guilty 


1 1 6  Visitation  of  the  Sins  of 

of  the  father's  sin,  and  this  is  the  sense  in  which  the 
punishment  of  the  children  for  the  sins  of  the  fathers 
is  understood  and  accepted  in  the  instance  of  Achan's 
children.  Had  Achan  been  smitten  with  disease,  and 
had  all  that  had  taken  place  with  respect  to  the  chil- 
dren been,  that  they  had  caught  the  complaint  by 
infection  and  died  of  it,  the  result  could  not  possibly 
have  been  represented  as  a  punishment,  except  in  the 
sense  of  an  evil  which  had  happened  to  them  through 
the  physical  medium  of  the  father's  sin.  The  father's 
death  by  disease  had  been  a  judicial  infliction  upon 
him  indeed,  but  the  death  of  the  children  would 
have  been  the  physical  consequence  of  his  death. 
It  would  not  itself  have  been  a  judicial  punish- 
ment, because  it  would  have  taken  place  just  the  same 
if  the  fatal  disease  of  the  father  had  arisen  from 
any  other  reason,  without  any  sin  to  deserve  it,  and 
simply  as  an  occurrence  of  nature.  The  disease  of  the 
father  would  have  been  simply  the  physical  cause  of 
the  disease  of  the  children,  not  a  moral  cause ; — not 
the  reason  of  their  deserving  the  infliction  of  it  as  a 
punishment.  But  the  punishment  of  the  children  did 
not  take  place  in  this  way.  It  was  a  fresh  judicial  act 
of  the  Almighty  in  addition  to  the  act  of  the  punish- 
ment of  the  guilty  man.  The  family,  as  distinct  from 
the  consequence  of  physical  law,  were  punished  upon 
the  ground  of  their  being  implicated  in  his  sin,  which 
is  a  moral  ground, — a  ground  of  desert. 

But  this  is  a  totally  different  Divine  act  and  Divine 
mode  of  procedure  from  that  which  takes  place  under 
the  head  of  visiting  the  sins  of  the  fathers  in  the 


the  Fathers  upon  the  Children.  1 1 7 

course  of  God's  natural  providence.  The  physical 
medium  of  suffering  by  which  the  same  punishment 
which  is  morally  the  punishment  of  the  father  is  mate- 
rially, and  by  way  of  physical  cause  and  effect,  the 
punishment  of  the  son, — which  is  real  punishment  in 
the  first  step,  and  is  not  real  punishment  in  the  next,— 
this  goes  on  every  day,  goes  on  now,  and  is  a  received 
and  immediate  law  of  God's  natural  providence.  But 
that  a  child  should  be  punished  as  guilty  of  an  impli- 
cation in  the  father's  crime,  is  a  conception  which  does 
not  belong  to  the  present  age  of  the  world,  and  which 
is  in  complete  contradiction  to  that  idea  of  human 
individuality  which  has  established  itself  in  the  human 
mind. 

But  because  the  law  of  Providence  which  we  call 
visiting  the  sins  of  the  fathers  upon  the  children  is  not 
properly  judicial,  has  it  no  moral  purpose  ?  It  has  a 
signal  one.  "When  we  look  upon  the  course  of  things 
in  this  world,  the  scene  before  us  is  at  first  all  haze 
and  confusion,  and  for  a  long  time  we  see  only  an 
entangled  growth  and  vast  chaos  of  events,  telling, 
some  one  way,  some  another,  and  therefore  forming  an 
inexplicable  whole,  perplexing  us  with  the  difficulty 
of  extracting  any  one  lesson,  drawing  any  one  law,  and 
anticipating  any  one  issue  from  it.  The  mass  is  full 
of  internal  discord  and  contention,  which  baffles  inter- 
pretation. But  by  and  by,  as  we  look  steadily  and 
patiently  upon  this  scene  of  complication,  a  faint  dawn 
of  interpretative  light  arises ;  the  events  point  in  cer- 
tain directions,  and  fall  into  certain  main  tracks  of 
design.  Laws  begin  to  appear ;  and  though  these  laws 


1 1 8  Visitation  of  the  Sins  of 

themselves  by  no  means  perfectly  harmonise,  but  in 
their  present  operation  present  an  appearance  of  going 
different  ways ;  still  they  extricate  the  scene  from  the 
thick  obscurity  which  lay  upon  it.  First,  there  is  the 
law  that  on  the  whole  the  dispensation  favours  the 
good  as  regards  happiness  and  satisfaction  in  life.  This 
is  a  law  which  is  obscured  by  many  false  lights,  and 
many  specious  counter  facts,  but  a  law  which,  as  our 
observation  deepens,  more  and  more  disengages  itself 
from  misinterpreting  and  distracting  considerations, 
and  comes  clearly  out.  Another  law  is  the  chastise- 
ment of  the  good.  Another  law  is  the  didactic  design 
of  the  dispensation,  that  events  are  so  ordered  as  to 
furnish  striking  lessons,  and  to  impress  deeply  upon 
us  moral  and  religious  truths, — "When  thy  judgments 
are  in  the  earth,  the  inhabitants  of  the  world  will  learn 
righteousness."  The  course  of  things  in  this  world  is  a 
great  teacher,  and  the  experience  of  life,  when  events 
are  looked  at  in  their  designed  light,  is  a  great  spirit- 
ualiser  of  the  mind.  And,  among  the  modes  of  teach- 
ing, one  is  the  sight  of  the  ruinous  effect  of  men's  sins 
upon  the  condition  of  their  families  and  posterity. 
The  sin  is  thus  held  up  to  the  world  with  a  mark  upon 
it,  it  is  made  to  fasten  on  men's  eyes,  and  it  is  kept 
up  in  recollection  when  otherwise  it  might  be  for- 
gotten. Providence,  if  we  may  use  the  expression, 
cannot  afford  to  dispense  with  the  ordinary  weapons  of 
instruction  which  chain  the  attention  of  mankind  to 
the  consequences  of  sin ;  thus  putting  the  stamp  of  evil 
upon  it,  exhibiting  it  to  the  world  in  a  fearful  and  for- 
midable light,  and  converting  it  into  a  lasting  spectacle 


the  Fathers  upon  the  Children.  119 

of  disaster  and  sadness  before  men's  eyes.  That  the 
sins  of  one  generation  do  issue  in  pain  and  loss  to 
another  is  observed ;  and  it  makes,  and  is  designed  to 
make,  a  certain  moral  impression  upon  us.  The  fact 
that  sin  continues  in  its  effects  long  after  the  act  itself, 
is  didactic,  and  creates  a  deep  image  in  men's  minds. 

We  have  thus  a  double  aspect  of  the  law  of  the 
Second  Commandment,  according  as  we  take  it  in  the 
sense  of  the  extraordinary  Old  Testament  visitations 
of  the  sins  of  individuals  upon  families  and  nations, 
which  we  have  discussed  j  or  according  as  we  take  it 
in  the  sense  of  the  law  of  God's  natural  providence,  so 
called.  If  we  take  it  in  the  sense  of  these  extraordi- 
nary facts,  we  understand  it  then  as  a  law  by  which 
God  punishes  children  judicially  and  as  guilty  of  the 
father's  sins.  If  we  take  it  in  the  latter  sense  of 
God's  natural  providence,  we  do  not  understand  the 
law  as  judicial  but  as  didactic.  The  law  of  the  Second 
Commandment  is  promulgated  now  in  our  churches  as 
an  existing  part  of  the  government  of  God :  not  as  an 
obsolete  part,  gone  with  the  ideas  of  former  days,  but 
as  a  present  law,  working  under  the  present  and 
Christian  dispensation.  And  we  speak  of  national 
judgments,  and  of  punishments  of  whole  populations, 
as  existing  modes  of  Divine  action  and  as  what  take 
place  now.  But  this  is  in  the  sense  in  which  we 
understand  the  law  when  working  as  a  part  of  God's 
natural  providence ;  that  is  to  say,  in  a  didactic 
sense.  We  do  not  suppose  that  the  law  is  judicial, 
as  punishing  the  good  part  of  these  populations 
judicially  for  the  sins  of  the  bad,  and  as  guilty  of 


I2O  Visitation  of  the  Sins  of 

those  sins;  but  only  meaning  that  in  these  signal 
calamities  the  order  of  nature  is  made  subservient  to 
moral  purpose.  It  is  evident,  indeed,  that  the  law  of 
the  Second  Commandment  was  relieved  of  its  judicial 
sense  even  while  under  the  Jewish  dispensation  and 
before  the  close  of  the  Old  Testament  period.  For 
Ezekiel  understood  the  Second  Commandment  in  a 
sense  different  from  the  judicial  punishment  of  one 
man  for  the  sins  of  another,  which  he  expressly  de- 
nounces as  derogatory  to  Divine  justice.1  The  in- 
terpretation of  an  earlier  age  doubtless  did  not 
distinguish  the  didactic  and  judicial  senses  of  the 
law  of  the  Second  Commandment,  but  a  clearer  light 
dawned  in  the  page  of  later  prophecy.  It  was  seen 
that  every  man  must  take  upon  himself  his  own  indi- 
vidual acts  and  deserts,  and  that  justice  required  that 
he  should  be  punished  for  his  own  sins  only.  The 
idea  of  the  true  individuality  of  man  stands  out  with 
conspicuous  strength  in  the  teaching  of  Ezekiel. 
Dim  and  confused  in  the  first  ages,  the  notion  of 
desert, — partly  resting  on  the  individual,  partly  clogged 
with  the  irrelevant  associations  of  blood  relationships 
and  neighbourhood, — struck  an  uncertain  ambiguous 
note  in  man's  conscience.  But  as  the  law  of  Sinai 
worked  in  men's  minds,  it  gradually  developed  the 
deeper  parts  of  his  moral  nature ;  and  the  individu- 
ality, of  the  human  being  came  out  in  its  true  form 
and  with  its  moral  consequences.  The  law  of  the 
Second  Commandment  proves  to  be  a  law  of  God's 
natural  providence,  but  no  judicial  law.  God,  in  the 

1  Ezekiel  xviii.  2. 


the  Fathers  upon  the  Children.  121 

Second  Commandment,  declares  that  "  He  visits  the 
sins  of  the  fathers  upon  the  children,  unto  the  third 
and  fourth  generation ; "  but  we  do  not  understand 
this  as  meaning  that  He  visits  those  sins  upon  them 
as  being  guilty  of  them.  "We  recite  this  command- 
ment in  our  churches  now,  but  we  take  it  in  a  sense 
which  satisfies  the  terms  of  it,  viz.,  the  physical  conse- 
quences ;  which,  while  they  do  not  prove  desert,  still 
answer  important  didactic  purposes.  In  interpreting 
this  Second  Commandment,  the  instances  which  divines 
give  as  parallel  cases  to  it  are  not  judicial  cases  of 
punishment,  but  instances  out  of  the  course  of  God's 
natural  providence, — cases  of  mere  physical  suffering 
caused  by  physical  laws.  "  The  posterity  of  a  traitor," 
says  Bishop  Taylor,  "  are  made  beggars  and  dishonour- 
able, his  escutcheon  is  reversed,  his  arms  of  honour  are 
extinguished,  the  nobleness  of  his  ancestors  is  forgotten. 
....  While  men  by  the  characters  of  infamy  are 
taught  to  call  that  family  accursed  which  had  so  base 
a  father." 1.  (Note  3.)  "  There  is  no  question,"  says 
Bishop  Sanderson,  "  de  facto,  but  so  it  is :  the  sins  of 
the  fathers  are  visited  upon  the  children.  ...  As 
diseases  and  infirmities  of  the  body,  so,  commonly  the 
abilities  and  dispositions  and  tempers  of  the  mind  and 
affections  become  hereditary,  and,  as  we  say,  run  in 

a  blood But  that  the  children  are  punished 

for  the  fathers'  sins,  or  indefinitely  any  one  man  for 
the  sins  of  any  other  man,  it  ought  to  be  imputed  to 
those  sins  of  the  fathers  or  others,  not  as  to  the 
causes  properly  deserving  them,  but  only  as  occasion- 

1  Sermon  on  the  Entail  of  Curses  cut  off. 


122  Visitation  of  the  Sins  of 

ing  those  punishments. " *  Theological  writers  who  de- 
fend the  law  of  the  Second  Commandment  thus  appeal 
to  an  existing  course  of  providence  as  itself  affording 
instances  of  such  a  law ;  but  the  instances  to  which 
they  appeal  are  not  instances  of  judicial  infliction, 
and  do  not  therefore  come  up  to  the  justification 
of  the  Second  Commandment  in  that  sense.  The 
appeal,  therefore,  to  such  non-judicial  instances  in 
justification  of  the  Second  Commandment  implies  that 
the  Second  Commandment  is  not  taken  in  a  judicial 
sense.  The  law  of  visitation  of  sins  in  the  Second 
Commandment  is  regarded  as  sufficiently  fulfilled  if 
God  does  so  connect  sin  with  misery  for  any  wise  end 
— any  purpose  which  is  instructive,  though  not  im- 
plying anything  judicial ;  or  that  God  visits  the  chil- 
dren in  this  case  as  being  guilty  of  the  fathers'  sins. 

Indeed  one  cannot  doubt  that  the  whole  class  of 
extraordinary  punishments  of  nations  and  families  for 
the  crimes  of  individuals,  in  the  Old  Testament,  which 
has  been  discussed  in  these  Lectures,  had  a  didactic 
object  in  view,  as  well  as  a  barbarous  and  eccentric 
judicial  object.  Those  strange  and  monstrous  forms 
of  civil  justice  which  were  incorporated  in  the  regular 
practice  of  the  Eastern  courts,  and  in  extraordinary 
instances  in  the  Jewish,  were  a  sort  of  actual  wild 
justice ;  in  the  first  instance  designed  as  a  magnifying 
and  expansion  of  the  really  guilty  person,  but  beyond 
this  aiming  at  a  rough  sort  of  instruction,  at  marking 
certain  crimes  by  way  of  warning,  and  terrifying 
the  people  from  the  commission  of  them.  It  was  a 

1  Third  Serm.  ad  Populum. 


the  Fathers  upon  the  Children.  123 

method  of  teaching,  by  means  of  spectacles  and  scenes 
of  horror,  and  the  multiplication  of  the  disastrous 
effects  of  crime.  It  aimed  at  producing  an  over- 
whelming impression,  a  stunning  blow  and  shock  to 
subdue  the  crowd.  And,  much  more  than  a  mere 
outbreak  of  civil  justice  and  the  monarch's  will — often 
a  mere  barbarous  and  capricious  outbreak — did  the 
divinely  commanded  scenes  of  destruction  serve  a 
didactic  object.  They  impressed  upon  the  minds  of 
an  obdurate  people  the  heinousness  of  particular  sins ; 
they  inspired  terror,  and  compelled  them  to  think 
with  awe  of  the  offended  majesty  of  God. 

And  thus  we  have  a  double  aspect  of  that  extra- 
ordinary class  of  Divine  commands  which  have  been 
considered  in  these  Lectures,  according  as  we  regard 
them  as  abnormal  and  irregular  manifestations  of 
justice,  or  as  rough  modes  of  instructing  a  barbarous 
people.  Both  designs  were  doubtless  united  in  the 
main  basis  upon  which  these  anomalous  proceed- 
ings stood,  and  in  the  great  motive  and  idea  which 
originated  them.  They  were  rude  and  extrava- 
gant forms  of  justice,  but  they  had  also,  like  the 
natural  law  of  visitation  of  fathers'  sins  in  the  course 
of  Divine  providence,  a  didactic  design;  only  the 
disastrous  consequences  of  these  sins  upon  the  families 
of  the  offenders  were  produced  by  a  special  Divine 
command  instead  of  by  the  course  of  nature.  Didac- 
tically it  was  the  same  whether  the  wickedness  of  a 
father  transmitted  a  shortened  life  to  the  child  by  a 
natural  law  or  by  a  positive  command.  Either  case 
was  an  instance  of  the  right  of  the  Almighty  to  in- 


124  Visitation  of  the  Sins  of 

struct  by  means  of  terrible  events  and  by  the  deaths  of 
His  creatures.  As  the  destruction  of  human  life  upon 
the  largest  scale  is  God's  every-day  act,  without  an 
apparent  reason,  so  it  is  perfectly  consistent  that  it 
should  be  His  act  for  a  reason,  the  object,  viz.,  of 
moral  teaching  and  impression.  The  extermination 
of  the  Canaanites,  and  the  destruction  of  the  families 
of  Korah,  Dathan,  and  Abiram,  of  Achan,  and  of  Saul, 
were  great  lessons,  and  lessons  which  the  great  Master 
could  give  by  the  simple  exercise  of  His  rights  as  the 
Lord  of  human  life. 

These  two  aspects,  then,  of  this  extraordinary 
class  of  Divine  acts  give  us  the  temporary  and 
accommodated  side  of  the  Divine  action,  which  can- 
not be  defended  but  as  an  accommodation  to  the  con- 
ceptions of  the  day;  and,  that  side  of  the  Divine 
action  which  is  permanent  and  which  is  continued 
now  in  the  ordinary  course  of  Divine  providence. 
The  judicial  aspect  of  these  Divine  acts  was  tem- 
porary and  accommodated  only,  because  it  was  impos- 
sible really  that  God  should  punish  children  on  ac- 
count of  their  fathers'  sins,  and  as  being  guilty  of 
them,  therefore  the  punishment  could  not  have  been, 
even  at  the  time  of  this  commandment,  in  fact  judicial 
or  retributive.  But  doubtless,  among  the  Israelitish 
people, — to  the  popular  understanding  at  the  time,— 
these  visitations  were  judicial  acts  of  the  Deity.  Our 
interpretation  of  these  Divine  acts  would  thus  differ 
from  the  contemporary  one ;  and  they  are  defended 
now  upon  a  different  ground  from  that  upon  which 
they  were  originally  accepted.  They  were  accepted 


the  Fathers  upon  the  Children.  125 

at  the  time  as  judicial  by  the  enthusiastic  but  rude 
judicial  sense  of  that  time ;  but  to  us,  who  have 
advanced  upon  that  idea  of  justice,  and  in  whose 
eyes  the  right  of  the  individual  is  sacred,  these  acts  of 
God  can  only  be,  in  their  judicial  light,  accommodated 
acts;  not  real  acts  expressive  of  the  Divine  justice, 
but  only  adapted  to  the  popular  idea  of  justice  of  that 
day. 

They  were  real  acts,  and  expressed  the  real  mind 
of  the  Deity,  only  as  acts  of  instruction.  While  the 
judicial  side  was  an  accommodation,  the  didactic 
ground  on  which  they  stood  was  an  actual  and  a  real 
one,  and  this  has  continued  to  be  a  visible  part  of 
Divine  providence.  God  cannot  punish  a  man  for  the 
reason  of  another's  sin ;  but  it  is  open  to  God  to 
inflict  death  upon  his  creatures,  without  a  reason,  if  it 
so  pleases  Him ;  and  of  course  for  a  reason,  if  it  be  a 
good  one; — in  order  to  strike  wholesome  terror,  in 
order  to  keep  a  standing  memento,  in  order  to  associate 
sin  with  a  spectacle  of  horror  and  destruction.  This 
is  the  double  aspect  of  the  law  of  the  Second  Com- 
mandment : — to  us  a  law  of  didactic  providence ;  but 
judicial  to  an  earlier  age,  which  really  confused  indi- 
vidualities, and  identified  children  with  their  parents. 
A  clearer  light  began  to  dawn  on  the  page  of  later 
prophecy,  and  when  Ezekiel  proclaimed  a  more  perfect 
idea  of  the  Divine  justice,  as  checked  by  the  inherent 
limits  of  human  individuality  and  responsibility,  the 
whole  of  the  judicial  interpretation  of  the  Second 
Commandment  became  necessarily  obsolete. 


LECTURE    VI. 

JAEL. 

TN  what  light  would  the  Israelitish  nation  present 
-"-  itself  to  an  ardent  and  enthusiastic  mind  in  one  of 
the  neighbouring  communities — a  mind  keenly  alive  to 
the  horrible  atrocities  and  corruptions  of  the  religion 
of  the  old  races,  and  knowing  that  the  Israelitish  in- 
vader came  to  displace  them,  and  plant  his  own  stock 
in  their  stead  ?  That  there  had  been  one  such  person  in 
this  situation, — and  that  person,  like  Jael,  a  woman, — 
we  know ;  Eahab,  "  who  perished  not  with  them  that 
believed  not,"  because  she  had  "  faith,"  and  saw  that 
it  was  God's  will  that  a  pure  religion  should  cast  out 
the  false  ones,  and  the  holy  people  supplant  the  old 
corrupt  nations.  In  what  light  then  would  the  Jew- 
ish people  appear  to  a  mind  of  this  type  ?  In  the 
first  place,  a  whole  people  worshipping  the  one  invisible 
God,  under  no  form,  but  in  His  own  pure  essence, 
would  without  doubt  be,  as  compared  with  the  sur- 
rounding idolatries,  an  inexpressibly  sublime  sight. 
Even  one  true  worshipper  in  such  a  situation  would 
be  most  remarkable ;  such  was  Abraham  :  but  a  nation 
worshipping  the  one  Universal  Spirit  would  be  a 
marvellous  and  overwhelming  contrast.  It  would 
indeed  be  difficult  for  us  now  to  form  an  adequate 
conception  of  the  way  in  which  the  simple  absence  of 


Jael.  12  7 

idols  in  the  religion  of  a  nation,  amid  a  whole  sur- 
rounding world  of  idolatry,  would  strike  such  a  mind ; 
the  omission  would  be  more  speaking  than  any  sign  ; 
it  would  rouse  the  imagination  more  than  the  grandest 
spectacle.  An  idol  in  truth  conceals  the  Deity,  the 
absence  of  it  would  reveal  Him;  a  wall  would  be  broken 
down  and  veil  removed  which  separated  man  from 
his  Maker : — Who  would  be  first  apprehended  when 
He  ceased  to  be  seen,  and  would  sit  enthroned  in  His 
very  invisibility  when  the  image  was  gone.  There 
would  be,  when  the  earthly  god  had  disappeared,  for 
the  very  first  time  to  human  thought  really  a  God  in 
heaven.  The  idol  is  a  deadening  thing,  it  assimilates 
the  worshipper  to  itself,  and  converts  him  into  a  block 
of  wood  or  stone  ;  materialises  his  conceptions ;  clogs 
up  his  sense ;  but  when  the  idol  is  gone  he  is  a  living 
man  again,  and  again  discerns  a  God.  A  whole 
nation  worshipping  the  true  God,  and  worshipping 
Him  under  no  material  form,  would  be  thus  a  most 
awakening  spectacle  to  a  person  of  a  deep  religious 
spirit  in  another  community,  before  whose  eyes  the 
sight  was  brought ;  arresting  the  attention,  and 
revealing  heaven  and  earth  to  him  in  a  light  in  which 
he  had  never  before  seen  them,  but  similar  to  that  in 
which  they  stood  in  the  Psalmist's  words  : — "  Con- 
founded be  all  they  that  worship  carved  images,  and 
that  delight  in  vain  gods ;  worship  Him,  all  ye  gods. — 
Clouds  and  darkness  are  round  about  Him,  righteous- 
ness and  judgment  are  the  habitation  of  His  seat. — 0 
worship  the  Lord  in  the  beauty  of  holiness,  let  the 
whole  earth  stand  in  awe  of  Him.'7 


128  Joel. 

Such  a  nation,  again,  would  present  itself  to  the 
mind  of  a  person  of  this  temper  almost  in  the  aspect  of 
a  nation  of  priests.  The  ancient  pagan  world  laboured 
from  first  to  last  under  the  inveterate  prejudice  that, 
whatever  enlightenment  individuals  here  and  there 
might  attain  to,  the  mass  must  be  in  the  dark,  that 
truth  was  the  privilege  of  the  few,  and  that  error  and 
superstition  were  the  natural  inheritance  of  the  vulgar  : 
but  here  was  a  whole  nation  in  possession  of  the  most 
sublime  esoteric  truth ;  a  nation  worshipping  in  the 
light  of  day  that  one  Supreme  Being  who  was  only 
known  to  the  hierophant  and  the  philosopher  among 
the  heathen,  and  was  not  worshipped  even  when 
known.  Such  a  people,  then,  would  naturally  appear 
to  a  kindred  spirit  in  another  community  in  the  light 
of  a  sacred  people,  a  nation  of  priests,  with  whom  that 
truth  was  public  property  which  was  with  the  heathen 
the  secret  of  the  initiated  class.  "  All  thy  children 
shall  be  taught  of  the  Lord/'1  "  Open  ye  the  gates,  that 
the  righteous  nation  which  keepeth  the  truth  may 
enter  in." 2  The  actual  history  of  the  Israelites  was 
indeed  a  great  falling  short  of  the  model ;  still  this  was 
the  creed  and  worship  of  the  nation.  And  therefore 
Balaam  had  stood  gazing  on  in  involuntary  ecstasy 
of  admiration  and  awe  upon  that  nation,  and  had  said, 
"  From  the  top  of  the  rocks  I  see  him,  and  from  the  hills 
I  behold  him  :  lo,  the  people  shall  dwell  alone,  and  shall 
not  be  reckoned  among  the  nations." 3  Nor  even  was 
the  creed  of  the  crowd,  however  fluctuating  with  the 
tide  of  popular  caprice  and  shaken  by  sudden  fancies, 

1  Isaiah  liv.  13.  2  xxvi.  2.  3  Numb,  xxiii.  9. 


Jael.  129 

a  dead  creed.  On  the  contrary,  it  inspired  the  people 
with  courage,  it  filled  them  with  the  certainty  of 
victory,  and  with  the  sense  of  complete  superiority  to 
their  enemies.  "  Thou  shalt  not  be  affrighted  at  them : 
for  the  Lord  thy  God  is  among  you,  a  mighty  God 
and  terrible." J 

Let  us  suppose  again  such  a  kindred  spirit 
in  another  community  looking  on;  and  the  civil 
constitution  of  Israel  presents  itself  to  him  in  a 
remarkable  and  lofty  light,  as  well  as  its  religious 
worship.  The  nations  of  the  surrounding  heathen 
world  had  no  corporate  life,  and  seemed  only  to  exist 
for  the  sake  of  swelling  the  pride  and  feeding  the 
rapacity  of  the  fierce  monarchs  at  their  head.  The 
people  had  no  rights,  and  were  only  used  as  the  tools 
of  rapine  and  conquest ;  which  issued  again  in  the  fall 
of  the  pettier  princes  to  aggrandise  some  stronger 
one.  "  Threescore  and  ten  kings,"  said  Adoni-bezek, 
"having  their  thumbs  and  their  great  toes  cut  off, 
gathered  their  meat  under  my  table." '  Jabin3  had  an 
extent  of  warlike  equipment  which  implied  the  whole- 
sale robbery  and  oppression  even  of  his  own  subjects. 
Nations  thus  existed  in  order  to  raise  up  some  horrible 
embodiment  of  barbarous  pride,  and  exalt  some  one 
man  above  his  fellows,  to  delight  in  the  mere  savage 
exercise  of  power.  But  Israel,  as  a  civil  community, 
presented  a  very  different  sight.  It  was,  in  the  first 
place,  without  that  type  of  pride,  the  Eastern  king. 
No  barbarous  court,  with  its  tyranny,  cruelties,  and 
coarse  pomp  and  show,  impersonated  the  nation, 

*es  i.  7. 
K 


Deut.  vii.  21.  2  Judges  i.  7.  3  Ibid.  iv.  3. 


130  Joel. 

representing  it  in  its  very  worst  aspect.  The  govern- 
ment was  a  declared  theocracy,  exalting  God  and 
keeping  down  man.  And  it  may  be  added  that  even 
in  later  times,  when  a  king  had  appeared  in  Israel,  he 
was  still  a  king  under  a  theocracy,1  which  latter  was 
only  modified  by  the  kingly  office,  and  still  continued 
by  the  mouth  of  prophecy  to  direct  it :  he  was  not  a 
king  upon  the  barbarous  model.  Israel  thus  appeared 
in  the  light  of  a  free  community,  which  existed  for  the 
good  of  all  its  members ;  this  was  a  striking  contrast 
to  every  other  national  constitution  in  the  world.  And 
its  laws  spoke  in  the  same  direction.  Though  defec- 
tive upon  a  modern  Christian  standard,  they  main- 
tained justice  and  human  rights.  They  involved  the 
great  principle  of  public  good  as  the  end  and  object 
of  the  state,  in  distinction  from  human  greatness  and 
power. 

The  whole  career,  again,  of  the  nation,  and  the 
striking  events  connected  with  it,  would  tend  to  im- 
press that  kindred  spirit  whom  we  have  been  supposing 
to  look  on  db  extra,  with  a  strong  idea  of  the  high 
destiny  of  such  a  people.  The  Exodus  was  a  great 
religious  migration,  undertaken  by  the  nation  in  order 
to  release  itself  from  a  religious  as  well  as  earthly 
servitude.  Both  chains  were  fast  tightening  about  it ; 
the  religion  could  not  have  free  exercise  under  such  a 
yoke,  that  room  and  action  which  was  essential  to 
its  life,  and  without  which  it  only  existed  as  a  sup- 
pressed tradition,  tending  to  die  out ; — that  necessary 

1  Warburton's  Divine  Legation,  Book  v.  sect.  iii.  Davison  on  Pro- 
phecy, p.  202,  ed.  1845. 


Jael.  1 3 1 

field  for  itself  which  was  claimed  in  the  Divine  com- 
mand to  Pharaoh  :  "  Let  my  people  go,  that  they  may 
serve  me  in  the  wilderness/'1  The  wandering  in  the 
wilderness  was  a  period  of  religious  trial,  when  the 
privations  of  a  hard  life  were  so  great  as  almost  to 
break  down  the  spirit  of  the  people,  and  tempt  them 
even  to  a  return  to  Egypt.  But  the  trial,  though  with 
many  intervening  lapses,  being  borne,  the  nation  was 
exhibited  in  a  still  higher  light.  The  Eevelation  of  the 
Law  again,  made  in  the  wonderful  way  so  suitable  to 
that  stage  of  probation,  was  an  event  which  laid  the 
foundation  of  the  nation  deep ;  gave  its  religion  the 
fixity  of  a  formal  institution,  moulded  it  for  futurity, 
and  stamped  its  destiny  the  more  plainly  on  its  fore- 
head. The  march  out  of  the  wilderness,  through 
opposing  nations  into  Canaan,  manifested  the  courage 
of  faith,  and  the  inspiration  with  which  Israel  fought 
when  he  felt  the  presence  of  God.  The  entrance  into 
Canaan,  with  the  ark  of  the  covenant  going  before 
and  heading  the  procession  of  the  tribes,  was  a  solemn 
seizure  of  the  country  in  the  name  of  God.  It  was 
the  inauguration  of  a  religious  invasion, — a  holy  war. 
"  Ye  shall  destroy  their  altars,  and  break  down  their 
images,  and  cut  down  their  groves,  and  burn  their 
graven  images  with  fire."2  Thenceforth  Israel  fought 
not  against  man  only,  but  against  idolatry,  and  for  the 
true  religion. 

Let  us  imagine,  then,  all  these  aspects  of  the  Jewish 
people  present  to  the  person  whom  we  have  been 
supposing ;  together,  moreover,  with  the  knowledge  that 

1  Exod.  vii.  16.  2  Deut.  vii.  5. 


Joel. 

this  people  professed  to  be  the  receptacle  of  a  special 
Divine  promise,  which  gave  them  an  inalienable  right 
to  the  land  of  Canaan.  And  let  Jael  be  this  person. 
The  war  then — for  this  was  only  a  later  stage  of  the 
war  of  invasion — is  raging  between  the  invader  and 
the  idolatrous  and  infamous  Canaanite.  She  believes 
that  Israel  represents  the  cause  of  truth  and  righteous- 
ness in  the  world,  and  that  the  Canaanite  represents 
the  cause  of  evil.  She  believes  that  the  Canaanitish 
rule  is  a  curse,  a  scandal  which  cries  aloud  for  removal; 
and  that  it  is  the  design  of  an  avenging  and  a  com- 
passionate Providence  that  this  plague  should  be  ex- 
tinguished. And  now,  it  would  appear,  is  the  very 
time  that  God  has  chosen  for  the  execution  of  this 
purpose.  For  what  is  the  situation  of  affairs  ?  A 
Divine  command  has  come  to  Deborah  to  make  war 
upon  Jabin  and  the  Canaanites.  So  extraordinary  a 
fact  as  a  woman  rising  up  to  rouse  the  spirit  of 
Israel  to  a  war,  and  calling  together  an  army  to 
fight  the  Canaanites,  must  show  the  intention  of  Pro- 
vidence ;  and  that  she  had  a  mission  for  this  object. 
Under  this  belief — that  a  Divine  decree  had  gone 
forth  for  the  destruction  of  Sisera  and  his  army— 
a  whole  Israelitish  army  had  collected,  the  land  had 
been  stirred  from  one  end  to  the  other,  the  peace- 
ful pursuits  of  the  population  had  been  abandoned  for 
war,  preparations  had  been  made,  a  military  leader 
to  assist  the  prophetess  had  also  been  appointed, 
and  a  battle  had  been  fought.  The  Divine  command 
then  could  be  no  secret ;  it  had  been  the  warrant  for 
raising  an  army ;  and  had  had  a  public  result.  Why 


Joel  133 

then  should  not  Jael  have  known  of  it,  and  believed 
it  ?  And  if  so,  did  not  the  knowledge  of  it,  and  belief 
in  it,  put  her  under  the  same  obligation  under  which 
it  put  the  Israelites,  to  obey  and  execute  it  ?  That 
this  command  was  limited  to  the  Israelites,  and  was 
not  a  warrant  to  any  one  who  knew  of  and  believed  in 
it,  would  be  a  gratuitous  assumption.  Jael  knew  that 
God  had  crowned  the  courageous  effort  of  Israel 
with  success,  a  great  battle  had  been  won ;  and  now 
the  flying  Canaanite  leader  is  brought  by  an  apparent 
chance  into  her  very  tent ;  he  is  in  her  power,  and  she 
can  "  bruise  the  head"  of  the  corrupt  race,  and  destroy 
the  Canaanites  in  their  chief.  She  immediately  pro- 
nounces it  to  be  an  opportunity  put  in  her  way  by 
Providence, — that  Providence  which  plainly  designed 
that  this  sacred  race  should  possess  the  land  in  the  place 
of  the  old  stock.  She  kills  Sisera  as  an  enemy  of  God. 
Let  us  go  a  little  further  back,  and  place  before 
ourselves  the  general  situation  of  the  Israelites  in 
the  promised  land  at  this  time.  The  extirpation  of 
the  old  Canaanitish  stock  was  the  original  and  funda- 
mental law  of  the  whole  settlement  of  Israel  in  Canaan. 
This  had  been  interrupted  and  delayed,  but  it  still 
continued  to  be  the  law  of  settlement ;  and  the  con- 
sequence was  that  any  war  which  broke  out  with  the 
Canaanitish  people  still  continuing  in  the-  country, 
became  immediately  by  this  traditionary  law  a  war  of 
extermination.  Even  wars  of  self-defence  became  by  this 
necessary  interpretation  wars  of  religious  extermina- 
tion.1 As  soon  as  any  war  arose  against  a  nation  within 

1  Exod.  xxiii.  31  ;  Dent.  vii.  16. 


134  Joel. 

the  borders  of  the  promised  land,  "instead  of  accepting 
them  as  subjects  by  treaty,"  says  Michaelis,  "  or  even 
taking  them  for  slaves  ....  the  natural  consequence 
of  a  war  carried  on  by  a  sovereign  for  the  sake  of  acquir- 
ing new  subjects,  ....  the  destruction  of  the  inhabit- 
ants was  the  primary  condition  of  conquest." 1  "To 
the  Canaanites  no  terms  were  to  be  offered :  their  cities 
were  not  even  summoned  to  surrender :  no  capitula- 
tion was  to  be  granted  (for  this  is  the  meaning  of  the 
Hebrew  word  to  make  a  covenant],  but  they  were 
to  be  destroyed  by  the  sword ;  so  that  these  illegal 
possessors  of  Palestine,  to  save  their  lives  and  move- 
ables,  had  no  alternative  left,  but  to  abandon  the 
country  before  the  Israelites  approached." 2 

The  complete  execution  indeed  of  this  fundamental 
law  was  long  suspended.  Though  it  was  now  more 
than  a  century  since  the  entrance  under  Joshua,  the 
country  was  very  imperfectly  occupied,  and  the  old 
inhabitants  were  still  in  possession  of  some  of  the  most 
important  portions.  It  was  as  yet  only  a  mixed  and 
divided  occupation.  "  The  conquest  was  over,"  says 
Dr.  Stanley,  "but  the  upheaving  of  the  conquered 
population  still  continued.  The  ancient  inhabitants, 
like  the  Saxons  under  the  Normans,  still  retained  their 
hold  on  large  tracts  and  on  important  positions  through- 
out the  country." 3  This  delay  in  the  execution  of  the 
fundamental  law  of  Israel's  settlement  in  Canaan  had 
been  indeed  designed  by  God — the  reason  given  being, 
"lest,"  in  the  too  sudden  extermination  of  the  old  in- 

1  Michaelis'  Commentaries  on  the  Laws  of  Moses,  Book.  ii.  Art.  28. 
2  Ibid.  Art.  62,  3  Lectures  on  the  Jewish  Church,  p.  287. 


JaeL  135 

habitants,  "the  beasts  of  the  field  increase  upon  them;" 1 
but  it  had  also  been  prolonged  beyond  its  due  time  by 
the  sin  of  the  people,  "in  making  leagues  with  the 
inhabitants   of  the   land/'2 — in   voluntarily   coming 
to  terms  with  the  old  races,  and  treating  the  Canaanites, 
upon  whom  a  Divine  curse  had  been  laid,  upon  the 
footing  of  ordinary  nations  with  whom  they  might 
live  on  friendly  terms.     They  were  to  keep  them  at 
arm's  length  :  it  was  not  fitting  that  the  destined  de- 
stroyer should  be  living  on  social  terms  with  the  doomed 
people,  and  the  executer  of  Divine  justice  be,  in  the 
interim,  friends  with  the  criminal.     He  was  to  be 
faithful  to  the  solemnity  of  his  mission,  and  not  to 
trifle  with  it.3     But  this  rule  had  been  neglected,  and 
the  punishment  had  been  a  postponement  of  the  full 
occupation  of  the  land.     The  execution,  however,  of 
the  fundamental   law  of  extirpation  was   only  sus- 
pended all  this  time;   the  original  command  made 
allowance  for  delay : 4  this  whole  period  was  only  one 
prolonged  invasion. 

This  posture  of  things  gave  a  particular  character 
to  the  Israelitish  wars  of  independence,  of  which  the 
war  of  Deborah  against  Jabin,  king  of  Canaan,  was 
one.  These  were  in  fact  wars  of  aggression  and  exter- 
mination as  well  as  of  self-defence.  As  soon  as  any 
war  arose  against  a  nation  within  the  borders  of  the 
promised  land — though  it  might  be  a  war  of  resistance 
to  begin  with,  and  to  shake  off  some  tyrant's  yoke- 
once  begun  and  going  on,  it  was  a  war  of  extermi- 

1  Exod.  xxiii.  29,  30  ;  Deut.  vii.  22.  2  Judges  ii.  1,  2,  3. 

3  Exod.  xxiii.  21  ;  Judges  ii.  1,  2,  3.  4  Deut.  vii.  22,  23,  24. 


136          ,  Joel. 

nation,  proceeding  upon  the  fundamental  law  of  the 
Canaanitish  settlement,  which  was  the  law  of  exter- 
mination. The  people  must  be  dispossessed  some  time, 
and  now  was  the  time  : — now  that  a  war  had  broken 
out ;  this  was  the  direction  which  Israel  was  bound 
to  give  to  the  war.  He  might  have  upon  his  bor- 
ders for  years  a  Canaanite  kingdom,  too  formidable 
to  attack;  but  if  this  power  attacked  him,  and 
still  more,  if  the  attack  was  successful,  and  the 
galling  and  intolerable  servitude  which  followed  it 
compelled  him  to  rebel — in  that  case  Israel  being 
precipitated  by  events  into  a  death  struggle  with  a 
people  whom  he  had  been  expressly  commanded  to 
destroy,  now  was  the  time  when  he  was  distinctly 
placed  under  an  obligation  to  execute  this  command, 
and  to  destroy  this  people.  Indeed  the  tyranny  of 
the  Canaanites,  and  their  success  at  times  in  dragging 
Israel  under  their  yoke,  became  in  this  way  the  means 
by  which  he  was  roused  to  the  ultimate  conquest  of 
the  country.  Had  he  been  let  alone,  he  might  have 
rested ;  and  after  the  first  irruption  was  over,  the 
newcomer  might  have  fallen  back  into  quiet  habits; 
but  he  was  goaded  to  conquest  by  oppression  and 
subjugation,  and  in  rebellion  against  tyranny  he 
became  the  executer  of  the  original  law  of  extir- 
pation. 

To  return  to  the  particular  war  with  which  we  are 
now  concerned.  "  The  Lord,"  it  is  said,  "  sold  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel  into  the  hand  of  Jabin,  king  of  Canaan." 
The  kingdom  of  Jabin  is  here  called  "  Canaan  "  in  a 
local  sense,  which  is  probably,  however,  connected 


Joel.  137 

with  some  early  supremacy  of  this  particular  northern 
kingdom  over  the  whole  of  Canaan  in  the  large  sense. 
"It  was  a  tradition,"  says  Dr.  Stanley,  "  floating  in  the 
Gentile  world,  that,  at  the  time  of  the  irruption  of 
Israel,  the  Canaanites  were  under  the  dominion  of  a 
single  king.  This  is  inconsistent  with  the  number  of 
chiefs  who  appear  in  the  Book  of  Joshua.  But  there 
was  one  such,  who  appears  in  the  final  struggle,  in 
conformity  with  the  Phoenician  version  of  the  event. 
High  up  in  the  north  was  the  fortress  of  Hazor ; 
and  in  early  times  the  king  who  reigned  there  had 
been  regarded  as  the  head  of  the  others.  He  bore  the 
hereditary  name  of  Jabin  or  '  the  Wise/  and  his  title 
indicated  his  supremacy  over  the  whole  country.  .  .  . 
It  was  under  his  auspices  [the  writer  is  speaking  of 
Joshua's  invasion]  that  the  final  gathering  of  the 
Canaanite  race  came  to  pass.  Eound  him  were 
assembled  the  heads  of  all  the  tribes  who  had  not  yet 
fallen  under  Joshua's  sword."1  The  northern  kingdom 
of  "  Canaan"  kept  up  still — in  Deborah's  time — some 
of  its  early  suzerainty,  and  was  able  to  enlist  the 
services  of  various  minor  kings  in  the  present  con- 
test. "  The  kings  came  and  fought,  then  fought 
the  kings  of  Canaan  in  Taanach  by  the  waters  of 
Megiddo."2 

The  kingdom  of  Jabin,  then,  or  the  northern  king- 
dom of  "  Canaan,"  was  within  the  confines  of  the 
promised  land ;  and  the  territories  which  composed  it 
had  been  appropriated,  at  the  partition  under  Joshua, 
to  the  tribes  of  Zebulun  and  Naphtali.  The  capital, 

1  Lectures  on  the  Jewish  Church,  p.  258.  2  Judges  v.  19. 


138  Joel. 

Hazor,  was  within  the  limits  of  Naphtali.1  But 
neither  of  these  tribes  had  ejected  the  old  inhabitants. 
"  Zebulun,  we  are  told  in  the  first  chapter  of  Judges, 
did  not  drive  out  the  inhabitants  of  Kitron,  etc.,  but 
the  Canaanites  .  .  .  dwelt  among  them.  .  .  .  Neither 
did  Naphtali  drive  out  the  inhabitants  of  Beth-shemesh, 
.  .  .  but  he  dwelt  among  the  Canaanites/'2  The 
kingdom  of  "  Canaan,"  indeed,  as  we  have  seen,  had 
signally  recovered  itself  after  the  blow  of  Joshua's 
victory;  had  regained  even  part  of  its  original 
supremacy,  and,  reversing  the  position  of  things,  had 
subjugated  Israel. 

The  war  against  Jabin,  king  of  Canaan,  then,  when 
it  had  once  arisen,  was,  according  to  the  original  terms 
of  the  Israelitish  invasion  and  the  very  law  of  Israel's 
settlement  in  Canaan,  a  war  of  extermination  as  well 
as  of  independence.  The  Divine  command  for  the 
destruction  of  the  Canaanites  was  still  in  full  force, 
only  awaiting  proper  and  suitable  occasions  for  the 
execution  of  it.  This  was  such  an  occasion.  The  war 
once  begun  and  raging,  had  an  extirpating  direction 
given  to  it  by  the  force  of  that  statute.  Jabin's  king- 
dom occupied  space  which  was  wanted,  which  was 
part  of  the  Israelitish  map,  which  had  been  already 
assigned,  in  the  distribution,  to  particular  tribes.  It 
must  therefore  be  overthrown,  and  the  ground  cleared 
for  Israelitish  possession.  Later  in  history  indeed,  when 
the  Israelitish  dominion  had  been  established,  and  the 
Divine  purpose  answered,  this  command  to  extirpate 
may  have  received  a  qualification  such  as  justified 

1  Joshua  xix.  36.  2  Judges  i.  30,  33. 


Joel.  139 

the  toleration  of  the  Jebusites  as  residents  in  the 
country,  when  Jerusalem  was  taken  by  David; 
but  at  the  time  of  the  war  with  Jabin,  Israel  was 
struggling  for  his  very  existence  in  the  country, 
and  the  Divine  decree  of  destruction  had  as  much 
political  necessity  on  its  side  as  in  the  days  of 
Joshua. 

The  war  with  Jabin  then  had  been  undertaken  at  the 
express  command  of  God,  given  on  that  occasion,  and 
under  the  direction  of  an  inspired  person — Deborah  the 
prophetess — who  "judged  Israel  at  that  time."  To  a 
cursory  glance  the  "judges"  of  Israel  might  look  like 
civil  rulers  raised  up  from  time  to  time  to  govern  and 
administer  justice  in  a  period  of  anarchy,  when  no 
settled  government  existed  in  the  country.  But  this 
would  not  be  a  true  view  of  the  judge's  office.  Israel 
was  not  without  a  settled  government  all  this  time. 
There  was  a  code  of  law,  and  there  were  constituted 
authorities ;  there  was  what  may  be  called  a  civil  con- 
stitution, which  was  working  all  this  time,  even  in 
the  intervals  between  the  judges;  so  that  the  civil 
government  of  the  people  did  not  depend  on  them. 
Michaelis  constructs  out  of  the  Scripture  materials  a 
sketch  of  what  this  polity  was ;  to  which  he  adds  the 
following  statement : — "  It  will  now,"  he  says,  "  be 
easily  conceivable  how  the  Israelitish  state  might  have 
subsisted,  not  only  without  a  king,  but  even,  occasionally, 
without  that  magistrate  who  was  denominated  a  judge, 
although  we  read  of  no  supreme  council  of  the  nation. 
Every  tribe  had  always  its  own  chief  magistrate  ; 
subordinate  to  whom,  again,  were  the  heads  of  families 


140  Jael. 

and  if  there  was  no  general  ruler  of  the  whole  people, 
there  were  yet  twelve  lesser  commonwealths,  who,  in 
certain  cases,  united  together,  and  whose  general  conven- 
tion would  take  measures  for  their  common  interest."1 
The  civil  government  of  the  Israelites  being  thus  pro- 
vided for  by  this  polity,  the  Judge  when  he  rose  up 
was  an  extraordinary  officer  to  meet  some  great 
emergency  from  without,  and  to  rescue  Israel  from 
foreign  foes.  Such  were  Othniel,  Ehud,  Shamgar, 
Gideon,  Jephthah,  Samson.  Deborah  indeed  "  dwelt 
under  the  palm  tree  between  Eamah  and  Bethel:  and 
the  children  of  Israel  came  up  to  her  for  judgment  ;"2 
but  her  chief  mission  was  evidently  military, — to  save 
Israel  from  subjugation  by  Jabin.  She  was  raised  up 
in  a  time  of  civil  disorder ;  but  in  fact  a  judge  was 
a  military  functionary  rather  than  a  civil  one.  The 
appearance  of  a  Judge  was  thus  of  itself  a  war 
portent,  heralding  a  great  national  call  to  arms. 
And  in  the  present  case  the  commission  given  to 
the  Judge  and  executed  by  the  people  was  not 
only  to  resist  and  repel,  but  to  "  destroy."  "  I 
will  deliver  Sisera  with  his  chariots  and  his  mul- 
titude into  thine  hand."  "  The  hand  of  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel  prospered,  and  prevailed  against  Jabin 
the  king  of  Canaan,  until  they  had  destroyed  Jabin, 
king  of  Canaan."  It  was  the  language  of  the 
original  invasion.  Moses  had  predicted  a  pause  and 
a  delay  in  the  conquest,  but  also  a  repetition  of  the 
work  of  destruction  after  that  delay.  "  Thou  mayest 

1  Commentaries  on  Laws  of  Moses,  Book  ii.  Art.  46. 
2  Judges  iv.  5. 


Jael.  141 

not  consume  them  at  once  MI- — but  still  "  The  Lord  thy 
God  shall  deliver  them  unto  thee,  and  shall  destroy 
them  with  a  mighty  destruction.  And  he  shall  deliver 
their  kings  into  thine  hand,  and  thou  shalt  destroy 
their  name  from  under  heaven."2 

Now,  then,  to  revert  to  the  original  question.    We 
cannot  but  assume  as  the  most  natural  supposition, 
that  Jael  is  well  acquainted  with  the  general  state  of 
the  case,  i.e.,  that  a  Divine  command  has  gone  forth 
for  the  destruction  of  Sisera  and  his  host.     In  that 
case  she  has  as  much  right  to  kill  Sisera  as  Deborah 
herself  has  to  do  so ;  she  is  as  much  even  under  an 
obligation  to  do  so  as  Deborah  herself.     She  is  obvi- 
ously acting,  to  begin  with,  under  the  impulse  of  that 
enthusiastic  movement,  whatever  it  was,  which  has 
taken  possession  of  the  Israelites,  and  of  which  Deborah 
is  the  head.     As  women  there  is  a  common  type  in 
her    and    in    Deborah.      It  is    a   mark   of   a    great 
national  revolution  and  climax  of  feeling  when  women 
go  out  of  their  way  to  fight  and  take  part  in  deeds  of 
violence  like  men.     Jael  and  Deborah  were  both  in 
this  current,  though  in  very  unequal  situations, — the 
one  as  leader  of  the  war,  the  other  only  as  performing 
one  strong  act  in  it.     Still  they  are  obviously  carried 
away  by  one  common  enthusiasm,  and  have  apparently 
one  common  access  to  the   Divine  commands  with 
respect  to  the  Canaanites.     One  woman  inoculates  the 
other    with   a   common   patriotism   and   a   common 
enmity.     We  meet  in  Scripture  with  other  outside 
witnesses  to  the  call  of  the  Jewish  people  to  occupy 

1  Deut.  vii-  22.  2  Deut.  vii  23,  24. 


142  Jael. 

Canaan,  and  dispossess  the  old  inhabitants.  Eahab 
was  such  a  witness ;  she  recognised  the  right  of  the 
invaders  to  the  country.  Why  ?  Because  she  believed 
in  the  Divine  promise  to  the  chosen  people.  Jethro 
was  such  a  witness,  Balaam  was  such  a  witness,  Caleb 
was  such  a  witness.  This  was  outside  faith.  Jael 
then  believed  in  the  Divine  promise  to  the  Jewish 
people,  upon  which  its  right  to  Canaan  and  to  extir- 
pate its  population  was  founded. 

It  is  too  commonly  assumed,  in  comments  upon 
the  act  of  Jael,  that  Jael  herself  was  altogether 
removed  from  the  religious  influences  and  motives 
of  this  extraordinary  occasion ;  that  she  was  an 
isolated  person  in  this  whole  transaction,  and  that 
she  killed  Sisera  on  a  sudden  impulse  simply,  with- 
out any  participation  in  the  Israelitish  belief  and 
mission.  But  this  is  certainly  contrary  to  the  whole 
look  of  the  transaction,  which  is  all  the  other  way. 
There  is  an  extraordinary  stir,  the  land  is  moved,  and 
a  large  part  of  Israel,  near  where  Jael  resides,  is 
roused  and  in  arms.  The  occasion  of  this  stir  is  the 
Divine  command.  Sisera,  routed  in  battle,  flies  from 
the  Israelitish  spears  into  Jael's  tent,  and  the  rest 
follows.  Jael,  after  the  deed,  comes  out  to  meet  the 
Israelitish  general,  who  is  in  pursuit  of  Sisera,  and 
tells  him  that  she  has  forestalled  him.  Deborah 
praises  her  deed.  The  whole  look  of  things  is  that 
Jael  is  one  with  Israel  throughout,  that  she  acts  upon 
the  impulse  which  has  roused  Israel.  Deborah  extols 
her  just  as  if  she  were  a  sister  in  the  faith. 

And  we  must  take  into  account  here  that  Jael  was 


Joel.  143 

not  a  Canaan itish  woman.  Had  she  been,  indeed,  she 
might  still  have  believed  in  the  mission  of  the  chosen 
people,  as  Eahab  did  (Note  4) ,  and  have  been  an  Israelite 
in  faith.  But  Jael  was  of  the  family  of  the  Kenites — a 
family  founded  by  Jethro,  the  father-in-law  of  Moses, 
connected  by  affinity  with  Israel,  followers  of  the  Israel- 
itish  migration,  and  moreover,  hereditary  worshippers 
of  the  true  God.  She  was  of  the  same  stock  with  one 
who,  in  a  later  age,  came  to  meet  Jehu  as  he  drove  in 
his  chariot  to  Samaria  to  fulfil  his  purpose  of  destroy- 
ing the  worshippers  of  Baal.  "Relighted  on  Jehona- 
dab  the  son  of  Eechab  coming  to  meet  him  :  and  he 
saluted  him,  and  said  to  him,  Is  thine  heart  right, 
as  my  heart  is  with  thy  heart  ?  And  Jehonadab 
answered,  It  is.  If  it  be,  give  me  thine  hand.  And 
he  gave  him  his  hand ;  and  he  took  him  up  to  him 
into  the  chariot."1  A  later  Kenite  thus  superin- 
tended a  slaughter  of  Israelitish  idolaters,  not  accom- 
plished without  some  deception,  as  an  earlier  Kenite 
had  also,  not  without  the  same  tactics,  slain  the  leader 
of  the  idolatrous  Canaanites.  Jael  was  thus  by  birth 
an  Israelite  in  faith  and  worship.  Her  tribe  had,  as 
some  commentators  suppose,  the  position  of  prose- 
lytes, worshipping  according  to  the  Mosaic  Law,  and 
only  differing  from  Israel  in  not  having  a  title  to  the 
promised  land,  which  was  confined  to  the  blood  of 
Abraham.  They  were,  at  any  rate,  true  worshippers 
of  the  one  God.  It  is  true  that  the  Kenites  as  a 
body,  kept  aloof  from  this  war,  and  were  at  peace 
with  Jabin ;  but  why  may  not  Jael  have  been  a  be- 

1  2  Kings  x.  15. 


144  Joel. 

liever  in  heart  in  Deborah's  mission  among  her  own 
people,  and  in  their  eyes  an  enthusiast  ?  Would 
Deborah  have  acknowledged  the  right  of  a  house  thus 
connected  with  Israel  to  make  an  engagement  of  its 
own  with  a  public  enemy,  and  to  dictate  an  abstinence 
from  perfect  partisanship  with  Israel  to  Jael  ?  Was  it 
at  all  of  the  character  of  the  Divine  dispensation  under 
which  Deborah  and  Jael  both  lived  to  allow  of  such 
an  inference  ?  It  is  indeed  the  great  blot  upon  her 
act,  according  to  any  modern  standard  of  international 
relations,  that  her  tent  was,  by  the  agreement  of 
her  own  tribe  and  her  husband  at  its  head,  estab- 
lished as  a  rightful  shelter  for  Sisera ;  and  that  Sisera 
could  not  but  have  supposed  that  he  was  protected 
against  such  a  snare  as  was  spread  for  him  on  that 
occasion.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  dis- 
pensation of  that  day  completely  overrode  any  scruple 
of  international  law.  Scripture  itself  challenges  the 
validity  of  the  objection  by  the  bold  admission  that 
"  there  was  peace  between  Jabin  the  king  of  Hazor 
and  the  house'  of  Heber  the  Kenite."  An  express 
command  of  God  supersedes  any  human  arrangement 
or  contract.  And  Jael's  religion  is  a  matter  be- 
tween God  and  her  own  heart,  with  which  she  does 
not  mean  state  law  to  interfere.  It  is  an  early  case 
of  religious  independence  of  mind. 

It  ought  to  be  noted  lastly,  in  forming  our  esti- 
mate of  Jael's  act,  who  the  person  she  put  to  death 
was.  He  was  not  a  common  Canaanite,  but  the 
Canaanitish  general  and  leader,  especially  the  mark 
of  the  Divine  wrath  ;  and  against  whom  principally, 


Jael.  145 

as  the  representative  of  the  Canaanitish  power,  the 
thunderbolt  was  aimed  and  the  decree  of  destruc- 
tion sent  forth — "  I  will  deliver  him  into  thine 
hand."  He  was  not  even  an  ordinary  Canaanitish 
leader.  There  is  evidently  something  extraordinary 
about  this  man — Sisera.  It  must  strike  any  reader  as 
remarkable  that  we  hear  nothing  about  Jabin  person- 
ally in  this  war.  He  takes  no  part,  he  does  not  ap- 
pear on  the  scene,  and  is  a  cypher ;  while  the  man  who 
does  all  and  wields  the  whole  force  of  the  Canaanitish 
kingdom  is,  as  far  as  appearance  goes,  a  private  person, 
who  has  risen  to  extraordinary  power  and  to  the  head 
of  the  army.  Jabin  is  a  nullity ;  Jabin's  general  is 
everything.  This  is  an  unusual  spectacle  in  primitive 
times.  In  the  wars  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  indeed 
of  all  early  history,  the  king  always  heads  his  own 
army.  Chederlaomar  and  the  kings  with  him  lead  their 
own  armies ;  the  kings  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  and 
their  allies  lead  theirs ;  the  four  kings  who  unite 
against  Joshua  lead  theirs.  Pharaoh  himself  pursues 
the  Israelites  to  the  Ked  Sea.  Much  later  in  sacred 
history  the  kings  of  Israel  and  Judah  always  head 
their  own  armies.  The  kings  of  Syria,  Assyria,  and 
Babylon,  do  the  same.  David  had  his  "captain  of 
the  host "  under  him,  and  entrusted  some  wars  prac- 
tically to  him.  Joab  was  sent  against  Eabbah  ;*  and 
Joab,  Abishai,  and  Ittai  were  sent  to  suppress  Absa- 
lom's rebellion.  But  custom  still  enforced  the  pre- 
sence of  the  king  at  the  head  of  his  troops  sooner  or 
later  in  the  expedition.  David  was  summoned  to 

1  2  Sam.  xi.  1. 
L 


146  Joel. 

Kabbah  before  it  was  taken;  and  only  the  pressing  and 
affectionate  dissuasion  of  his  subjects  induced  him  to 
depart  from  custom  and  stay  away  from  the  expedi- 
tion against  Absalom,  when  he  had  said — "I  will 
surely  go  forth  with  you  myself."1  Sennacherib, 
though  he  sent  officers  in  advance  "  with  a  great  host" 
to  Jerusalem  to  threaten  the  city,  headed  the  expedi- 
tion against  it.2 

In  the  Homeric  age  the  king  always  leads  his 
own  army.  In  later  ages,  when  war  became  more 
of  a  scieuce,  the  office  of  general  sometimes  devolved 
upon  the  great  professional  soldier,  and  was  de- 
tached from  the  monarch,  but  the  king  is  his  own 
general  always  in  times  long  posterior  to  the  days  of 
the  Judges.  When,  then,  in  the  war  with  Jabin  all 
primitive  rule  is  broken,  and  a  general  who  is  not  the 
king  heads  the  army;  when  Jabin  is  in  the  background 
and  Sisera  is  the  great  man,  it  is  natural  to  suppose 
that  such  a  general  was  no  common  man ;  that  we  have 
in  him  a  person  of  commanding  mind,  who  has  risen 
by  the  force  of  his  character  to  the  head  of  affairs,  and 
contrived  to  collect  all  the  Canaanitish  spirit  and  all 
the  strength  and  the  resources  of  the  Canaanitish 
kingdom  around  him.  Such  men  do  rise  up  in  diffi- 
cult times,  and  become  the  representatives  and  the 
impersonations  of  the  race  or  nation  which  they  head. 
The  very  settlement  of  Israel  as  a  conqueror  in  Pales- 
tine placed,  of  itself,  the  Canaanitish  remainder  in 
imminent  danger ;  the  invader  had  one  object  before 
him,  which  rested  in  his  belief  upon  a  Divine  promise, 

1  2  Sam.  xviii.  2.  2  2  Kings  xix.  36. 


Joel.  147 

the  same  which  had  inspired  the  first  invasion.  He 
would  evidently  drive  out  the  Canaanite,  if  the  Ca- 
naanite  did  not  crush  him.  The  kingdom  of  Jabin,  in 
fighting  for  the  conquest  of  Israel,  fought  for  its  own 
existence,  and  such  a  juncture  is  apt  to  call  up  a  great 
and  leading  mind  to  the  head.  Sisera  would  thus  be, 
by  no  unnatural  interpretation  of  the  facts  before  us, 
the  very  life  and  soul  of  the  Canaanitish  kingdom;  and 
if  his  whole  army  perished  and  he  escaped,  "  the  snake 
was  scotched,  not  killed."  A  great  man  has  recovered 
himself  many  a  time  after  complete  defeat,  and  after 
losing  one  army  raised  another.  You  are  not  safe 
while  such  a  foe  is  alive,  and  the  one  mind  which 
animates,  inspirits,  and  directs  a  nation  which  is  your 
deadly  enemy,  is  left  to  it.  But  if  Sisera  was  such  a 
ruling  spirit  and  the  prime  mover  of  the  w^ar,  the 
Divine  decree  of  destruction,  which  had  gone  forth 
against  the  Canaanitish  host  generally,  applied  with  a 
hundredfold  strength  to  him  :  and  Jael,  if  she  believed 
in  that  decree,  would  think  that  this,  if  any,  was  a  case 
in  which  it  should  be  executed.  Was  the  inferior  mass 
to  be  slaughtered,  and  was  the  arch-enemy  to  escape  ? 
If  Sisera  was  the  great  man  on  the  Canaanitish  side, 
this  consideration  heightens  the  enormous  responsi- 
bility which  the  sudden  appearance  of  Sisera  at  Jael's 
tent  door  throws  upon  her.  Shall  she  not  at  once 
complete  the  rescue  of  Israel  by  killing  Sisera  ?  Or 
shall  she  give  way  to  a  scruple  and  save  him  ?  In 
this  case  she  sends  Sisera  back  to  his  own  country  to 
take  again  the  part  of  leader  of  the  Canaanites,  and 
collect  chariots  and  horsemen  for  another  invasion. 


148  Jael. 

He  has  another  chance  given  him.  It  is  impossible  to 
tell  what  a  great  man  may  do  if  he  has  this  other  chance 
given  him.  She  must  be  either  treacherous  to  Israel, 
then,  or  treacherous  to  Sisera  ;  she  must  act  the  friendly 
part  to  Israel,  and  consummate  the  rescue  which  has 
begun,  by  the  death  of  the  great  enemy;  or  by  spar- 
ing him  reserve  a  contest  for  another  day,  with 
perhaps  a  different  result.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
conceive  that  Jael's  feelings,  after  sending  Sisera  back 
again  to  Hazor  to  construct  another  war  of  invasion, 
would  not  have  been  the  consciousness  that  she  had 
been  guilty  of  a  great  piece  of  treachery  to  a  sacred 
cause,  and  a  sacred  nation.  This  was  the  only  alter- 
native which  was  open  to  Jael,  and  it  would  seem  to 
have  come  upon  her  all  at  once,  and  with  a  short  time 
to  decide  it.  Sisera  himself,  by  simply  appearing  on 
the  scene  and  presenting  himself  to  Jael,  placed  her  in 
an  enormous  difficulty ;  for  either  she  must  give  up 
Israel  by  taking  part  with  its  great  enemy,  or  give  up 
him.  She  decides  that  the  real  rescue  of  Israel 
requires  the  death  of  Sisera.  St.  Augustine's  sup- 
position, that  Jael  had  a  special  revelation  made 
to  her,  upon  which  she  acted  when  she  slew  Sisera, 
is  a  gratuitous  one.  But  it  is  not  at  all  necessary 
to  resort  to  such  a  conjecture  in  order  to  put  Jael 
in  the  situation  of  an  authorised  executer  of  a  Divine 
command. 

This,  then,  is  the  explanation  of  the  act  of  Jael, 
viz.,  that  it  was  done  in  obedience  to  a  Divine  com- 
mand, not  communicated  specially  to  her,  but  which 
had  been  made  public,  and  acted  upon  by  the 


JaeL  149 

Israelites,  and  of  which  she  would  have  the  same  evi- 
dence that  they  had.  For  Israel  could  not  be  the  only 
authorised  executer  of  such  a  command.  The  know- 
bdge  of  it  would  in  itself  confer  the  authority,  nay, 
lay  the  obligation,  to  put  it  into  effect.  It  is  most 
important,  with  reference  to  objectors,  to  remark 
upon  the  history  of  Jael's  act  that  this  account  is 
evidently  a  fragment.  By  a  fragment  I  mean  that  it 
is  an  incomplete  statement  of  the  transaction  to  which 
it  relates ;  and  wants  filling  up  in  order  to  make  it  a 
whole  and  complete  account.  The  story  as  thus  given 
does  not  explain  itself,  because  no  reason  and  motive  are 
assigned  to  the  act,  so  that  that  which  is  necessary  to 
the  understanding  of  any  human  action  whatever, 
and  still  more  of  so  extraordinary  an  act  as  this,  has 
to  be  supplied.  We  are  told  nothing  of  the  mind  of 
the  agent  in  this  very  brief  statement,  which  is  intro- 
duced with  the  greatest  abruptness,  without  any  intro- 
duction, and  without  any  reflection  upon  it  afterwards. 
It  is  not,  however,  sufficiently  observed  generally  that 
the  account  of  Jael's  act  is  thus  incomplete.  People 
accept  the  short  abrupt  statement  as  if  it  were  a  whole. 
A  man  suddenly  enters  her  tent ;  she  welcomes  him 
and  feeds  him ;  he  falls  asleep,  and  she  kills  him. 
It  is  supposed  that  he  was  an  enemy,  but  how  and 
in  what  sense  is  not  said.  Here  is  a  gap. 

The  great  error  in  the  treatment  of  the  act  of 
Jael  has  been  looking  at  it  without  the  consideration 
of  this  gap,  and  apart  from  all  those  surrounding 
circumstances  which  so  evidently  affix  the  character 
and  the  motive  to  the  act,  and  give  it  its  true  inter- 


1 50  Jael. 

pretation.  There  is  a  whole  extraordinary  and  ex- 
ceptional state  of  things  existing  at  the  time,  and  a 
peculiar  law  is  in  course  of  execution  against  the 
Canaanites.  Jael's  act  does  not  stand  by  itself, 
but  has  relation  to  this  whole  state  of  things.  It 
takes  place  in  the  thick  of  it,  and  is  part  of  the 
whole  action  which  rises  up  under  a  peculiar,  pressing 
dispensation.  If  that  whole  action  is  right,  and  if  the 
exterminating  war  is  justified  by  the  Divine  com- 
mand, Jael's  act  comes  under  the  general  head  of  this 
war  and  this  justification.  It  is  done  under  the  im- 
pulse of  the  whole  movement,  and  under  the  sanction 
of  the  general  anathema  which  allowed  no  rights  to 
the  Canaanites,  and  treated  nothing  as  due  to  an  out- 
lawed race.  It  was  done  in  execution  of  the  exter- 
minating sentence  applying  to  the  nation,  nor  can  it 
be  convicted  as  wrong  if  the  rest  of  the  war  was  right. 
It  must  be  noted,  however,  with  respect  to  such 
an  act  as  Jael's,  that  no  explanation  can  do  away 
with  those  repulsive  features  of  it  which  result  from 
its  collision  with  ordinary  rules  of  conduct.  If  the 
latter  are  overridden  legitimately,  they  still  are  over- 
ridden; if  certain  natural  feelings  are  justifiably 
violated,  the  violation  still  remains :  though  the  act 
be  under  the  circumstances  defensible,  this  discord 
continues.  Nor  does  this  consequence  go,  even  if 
the  reason  be  satisfied ;  but,  though  the  deed  be  in- 
spired by  the  sublimest  faith  and  zeal,  still  clings  to 
it ;  so  that  even  with  admiration  is  mingled  a  partial 
repugnance,  owing  to  the  mere  circumstance  of  some- 
thing in  our  nature  having  to  give  way.  It  is  evident 


Joel.  151 

that  some  place  must  be  allowed  in  morality  for  acts 
of  this  kind ;  when  we  see  how  many  different  rela- 
tions we  stand  in,  one  of  which  may  come  into  colli- 
sion with  another.  Justice  must  thus  sometimes 
supersede  family  affection  and  friendship ;  yet  the 
opposition  of  principles,  both  so  sacred,  cannot  issue 
in  a  pleasing  act ;  though  we  may  admire  the  moral 
strength  of  will  to  which  has  yielded  the  affection, 
whatever  it  was,  which  ought  to  have  yielded.  The 
ancient  world  had  its  great  actions  of  this  type,  which 
were  handed  down  as  exemplars ;  such  was  that  of 
Brutus  condemning  his  own  sons  to  death  for  conspir- 
ing against  their  country,1  and  the  consul  Manlius' 
execution  of  his  own  son  fresh  from  the  victorious 
single  combat,  the  engagement  in  which  was  a  breach 
of  military  discipline.  Scripture  contains  many  acts 
in  which  a  Divine  command  is  fulfilled  at  the  cost  of 
natural  feeling.  When  Zebah  and  Zalmunna  say  to 
Gideon,  "  Eise  thou  and  fall  upon  us ;  for  as  the  man  is, 
so  is  his  strength," 2  the  magnanimity  of  the  captive 
princes  seems  to  be  a  motive  for  sparing  them ;  and 
when  Agag  had  once  felt  that  "  the  bitterness  of  death  " 
was  past,  the  justice  which  hewed  him  in  pieces 
before  the  Lord  jars  with  natural  clemency.  It  is 
quite  as  easy  to  suppose  as  not,  that  Jael  had  to  over- 
come, by  a  great  effort,  a  strong,  warm,  and  generous 
feeling  to  a  guest,  in  executing  an  imperious  task  of 

1  Infelix  !  Utcumque  ferent  ea  facta  minores  ; 
Vincet  amor  patriae,  laudumqiie  immensa  cupido. 

Virg.  <&n.,  vi.  823. 
2  Judges  viii.  21. 


152  Joel. 

faith.  No  explanation  of  an  act  can  undo  the  actuai 
composition  of  it,  or  remove  an  opposition  of  this  kind 
within  it ;  though  the  substance  of  an  act  is  separable 
from  the  shock  to  the  feelings.  But  though  the  act 
is  repugnant  to  the  feelings,  the  character  of  the 
agent  is  rescued  when  the  act  is  done  upon  justifying 
grounds. 

But  a  funereal  strain  alternates  with  the  hostile 
triumph  of  Deborah,  as  she  comes  to  the  closing 
scene  of  Sisera.  Mingling  with  the  description  of  her 
treachery,  the  courtesies  of  Jael's  tent  to  the  Canaanite 
general  wear  the  aspect  of  the  last  honours  to  the 
great.  Deborah's  idea  is  that  of  the  great  man's 
falling  in  the  midst  of  the  high  deference  paid  him. 
If  it  was  right  that  Jael  should  kill  him,  because  his 
path  crossed  the  awful  scope  of  a  Divine  sentence,  still 
such  attentions,  so  long  as  he  was  alive,  were  in  place ; 
they  marked  him,  though  an  enemy,  still  as  foremost 
and  as  leader.  We  see  the  mournful  contrast  between 
life  and  death,  which  all  poetry  has  lingered  over. 
Greatness,  as  struck  down  at  one  blow,  in  the 
midst  of  its  honours,  and  the  tribute  paid  to  it,  pro- 
duces a  passing  emotion  of  sympathy  even  in  the 
mind  of  the  Jewish  prophetess,  while  her  main 
thoughts  follow  her  country's  rescue  :  and  the  mighty 
foe  is  laid  low  in  that  grand  solemnity  of  verse,  and 
in  that  sad  picture  of  death,  in  which  a  high  com- 
passion speaks — <c  At  her  feet  he  bowed,  he  fell,  he 
lay  down;  at  her  feet  he  bowed,  he  fell;  where  he 
bowed,  there  he  fell  down  dead." 


LECTURE   VII. 

CONNECTION  OF  JAEL'S  ACT  WITH 

THE  MORALITY  OF  HER  AGE. 

v* 

FT  was  shown  in  the  last  Lecture  that  Jael's  act  was 
in  obedience  to  a  Divine  command ;  though  that 
command  was  not  given  separately  and  particularly  to 
her; — in  obedience  to  the  command  by  which  the 
present  war  had  been  undertaken  against  the  Canaan- 
ites  ;  which  war,  when  it  was  once  undertaken,  became 
ipso  facto  a  war  of  extermination,  and  joined  that  whole 
stream  of  hostile  impulse  which  had  begun  the  original 
invasion  of  the  promised  land.  It  was  shown  that, 
according  to  the  natural  interpretation  of  the  sacred 
narrative,  Jael  must  have  known  of  the  Divine  com- 
mand by  which  the  present  war  was  undertaken,  and 
must  have  known  of  the  nature  and  scope  of  the  war. 
But  such  a  scope  and  design  in  a  war  undertaken  by 
Divine  command,  involved  the  duty  of  all  who  exe- 
cuted the  Divine  plan  in  the  war,  to  take  their  part 
individually  in  the  work  of  destruction,  and  to  be  pre- 
pared to  kill  the  enemy  wherever  an  opportunity  was 
offered.  And  Sisera  upon  the  present  occasion  speci- 
ally gave  Jael  this  opportunity. 

Had  then  this  general  command  to  destroy  the 
Canaanites,  which  included  Sisera,  been  a  command 


154  Connection  of  Jael's  Act 

in  the  full  and  ordinary  sense  in  which  that  expression 
is  used, — in  the  sense  in  which  such  a  phrase  is  under- 
stood when  it  is  said  a  Christian  is  commanded  by 
God  to  do  this  or  that ;  had  this  been  the  case,  it 
might  have  been  said  that  that  command  carried  with 
it  the  full  justification  of  the  homicide  :  and  it  might 
have  been  said  also  that  the  act  of  treachery  had  the 
same  justification,  inasmuch  as  the  Divine  command 
could  only  have  been  executed  by  means  of  dissimula- 
tion. It  might  have  been  said  that  the  circumstances 
under  which  the  act  was  done  took  it  entirely  out  of 
the  ordinary  estimate  of  such  an  act;  because  the 
person  to  whom  it  was  done  had  been  struck  out  of 
the  roll  of  living  humanity  by  an  act  of  God;  he 
had  been  proscribed  as  an  outlaw,  to  whom  the  com- 
mon offices  of  humanity,  including  that  of  continuing 
his  life,  were  not  due ;  he  was  one  of  a  race  against 
which  utter  extermination  had  been  proclaimed ;  and 
he  had  been  especially  singled  out  for  denunciation. 
But  what  were  the  obligations  of  Jael  as  regards  such 
a  person  ?  Jael  was  under  an  obligation  to  kill  him, 
and  if  so  what  obligation  was  she  under  to  speak  the 
truth  to  him  ? 

It  must  be  seen  that  such  a  defence  as  this  would 
profess  to  be  a  full  and  complete  defence  of  Jael ;  and 
that  it  would  profess  to  acquit  her  wholly  of  anything 
laid  to  her  charge ;  and  to  make  it  a  fit  and  suitable 
act  even  for  a  Christian  to  do ;  everything  would  have 
been  explained  which  was  an  obstruction  to  the  per- 
fect moral  recognition  of  the  act ;  and  nothing  would 
profess  to  have  been  wanting  to  a  complete  justifica- 


with  the  Morality  of  her  Age.  155 

tion.  It  is  true  the  treachery  is  what  has  chiefly  at- 
tracted attention  to  the  act  of  Jael :  and  had  the  same 
act  of  homicide  been  done  under  different  circumstances, 
had  she,  e.g.,  killed  Sisera  as  "a  certain  woman"1 
on  the  top  of  a  tower  killed  Abimelech,  by  cast- 
ing a  piece  of  a  millstone  upon  his  head,  nothing 
would  have  been  said  ;  but  it  is  her  treachery 
which  has  occasioned  the  great  denunciation  of  her 
act.  But  this  defence  professes  to  be  a  complete 
justification  of  the  deceit  as  well  as  of  the  homicide, — 
upon  the  supposition  of  a  command  of  God  to  kill 
Sisera. 

St.  Paul's  position  appears  to  be  that  the  duty  of 
truth-speaking  is  an  offshoot  of  the  ordinary  relations 
of  man  to  man,  and  that  it  is  a  consequence  of  men 
being  members  one  of  another.  The  ground  for  the 
duty  is  the  relation  of  charity  in  which  we  stand  to 
each  other,  of  the  unity,  moral  and  social,  by  which 
we  are  connected  with  each  other.  "  Speak  every 
man  truth  with  his  neighbour  :  for  we  are  members 
one  of  another/' '"  Deceit  is  a  barrier  between  one  man 
and  another,  and  is  therefore  contrary  to  union  and 
membership.  The  duty  of  speaking  the  truth  thus 
takes  its  place  under  the  general  head  of  charity ;  of 
good  and  considerate  treatment  of  others.  Truth- 
speaking  is  not  a  universal  isolated  obligation 
which  we  are  under ; — a  law  to  say  truth  under  all 
circumstances,  and  in  whatever  relations  we  stand 
to  the  other  party ;  but  it  supposes  certain  relations, 
viz.,  the  ordinary  relations  of  man  with  man,  the 

1  Judges  ix.  53.  2  Eph.  iv,  25. 


1 56  Connection  of  Joel's  Act 

natural  terms  of  fellowship  with  man, — that  we  are 
bound  to  perform  all  the  offices  of  humanity  to  him, 
and  to  behave  to  him  as  a  brother.  When  we  speak 
of  the  certain  and  obvious  obligation  to  sincerity, 
these  are  the  relations  which  we  suppose ;  and  St. 
Paul  places  the  duty  of  veracity  upon  its  proper  basis, 
and  gives  the  law  of  truth  its  proper  position  in  the 
frame  and  system  of  morals,  when  he  assigns  the  duty 
of  truth-speaking  this  large  and  deep  source,  this  in- 
telligible connection,  and  this  inclusive  rationale. 

It  appears  to  follow,  then,  that  when  these  ordinary 
relations  to  a  man  cease,  when  the  natural  terms  of 
fellowship  with  him  are  dissolved,  and  so  far  as  they 
are  dissolved,  the  duty  of  speaking  truth  to  him  no 
longer  exists.  The  relations  being  at  an  end  from  which 
the  duty  of  veracity  proceeds,  the  duty  goes  with 
them ;  and  the  moral  character  of  an  untruth  alters 
with  the  fundamental  ground  on  which  we  stand 
toward  the  man. 

Thus,  with  a  murderer  engaged  in  the  act,  it 
must  be  said  we  are  not  on  natural  terms  of  fel- 
lowship ;  the  ordinary  relations  of  man  to  man  are 
suspended.  Supposing  him  to  ask  information  of  us, 
then,  in  pursuit  of  his  object,  it  is  no  duty  to  abstain 
from  deceiving  him.  Speak  the  truth,  for  we  are 
neighbours  one  of  another.  But  such  a  man  is  not  a 
neighbour  and  not  a  brother,  he  is  deprived  therefore 
of  no  right  by  deception.  A  man  has  evidently  the 
right  to  take  away  the  murderer's  life,  when  it  is  neces- 
sary to  do  so,  in  order  to  save  another  life.  But  it  is 
absurd  to  say  that  a  man  has  a  right  to  kill  him 


with  the  Morality  of  her  Age.  157 

in  order  to  protect  another  life,  and  that  he  has  not 
a  right  to  deceive  him  for  the  same  purpose.  A 
release,  then,  from  the  ordinary  obligation  to  truth  - 
speaking  has  been  attributed  to  situations  in  which 
the  contrary  is  necessary  in  order  to  save  the  life  of 
another  from  the  hands  of  a  murderer.  But  it  must 
seem  that  in  any  other  case  in  which  a  man  ceases 
to  be  a  fellow, — and  is  thus  out  of  membership  and 
union  with  you, — he  is  naturally  deprived  of  the 
same  right  to  truth-speaking :  where,  e.g.,  the  relations 
of  humanity  are  dissolved ; — the  great  relation  of  man 
to  man,  that  of  keeping  him  alive,  or  being  desirous 
of  doing  so. 

A  mere  executioner  may  be  regarded  as  a  simple 
tool  or  weapon,  but,  in  the  case  of  Jael,  here  is  a 
person  who  is  more  than  this,  who  is  bound  by  her  will 
to  seek  the  man's  life,  and  take  measures,  if  she  can, 
to  secure  her  end.  This  is  plainly  an  unnatural  relation 
of  one  man  toward  another  man.  But  does  not  the 
right  of  truth-speaking  presuppose  the  natural  relations 
of  humanity  ?  It  is  not  easy  to  conceive  a  more  total 
contradiction  to  the  natural  relations  between  one  man 
and  another  man  than  the  duty  of  killing  that  other 
man.  When  you  are  so  completely  released,  then,  from 
the  law  of  charity  as  that  it  has  become  your  duty  to 
aim  at  the  death  of  another,  are  you  still  bound  to 
openness  and  sincerity  in  your  mode  of  seeking  it  ? 
The  duty  of  sincerity  is  so  plainly  connected  with  the 
law  of  human  fellowship,  that  to  say  that  upon  the 
dissolution  of  that  law  no  consequence  at  all  could 
follow  to  that  duty,  would  be  a  strange  assertion.  The 


158  Connection  of  Jael's  Act 

duty  of  truthfulness  cannot  co-exist  with,  the  duty  of 
killing.  The  abnormal  position  with  respect  to  life  is 
thus  disturbing  to  the  regular  position  with  regard  to 
truth;  if  so  important  a  modification  of  his  generalrights 
has  taken  place  as  that  his  right  to  life  no  longer  exists, 
it  is  difficult  to  say  what  change  may  not  have  ensued 
in  his  right  to  truthfulness.  Our  duty  to  our  neigh- 
bour is  one  whole  ;  if  our  neighbour  has  forfeited  no 
right,  he  has  a  claim  upon  that  whole ;  but  if  he  has 
forfeited  the  right  to  one  part,  it  is  difficult  to  say 
how  that  one  part  may  not  have  affected  another 
part.  If  one  social  relation  has  given  way,  we  can- 
not say  that  another  may  not  have  been  undermined 
by  it. 

Upon  this  general  argument  a  defence  of  Jael  has 
been  attempted  by  some  commentators  which  aims  at 
being  a  complete  justification  of  her  under  the  circum- 
stances; as  though  she  might  have  done  the  act  in  every 
detail,  being  a  Christian,  i.e.,  that  the  act  is  perfectly 
moral  throughout.  But  we  must  see  that  the  foundation 
gives  way  for  such  a  defence  as  this.  It  is  essential  for 
such  a  perfectly-justifying  defence, — inasmuch  as  the 
whole  of  it  rests  upon  the  foundation  of  a  Divine  com- 
mand to  kill,  in  the  first  instance, — that  that  command 
should  have  been  without  reserve,  and  that  it  should  be 
capable  of  being  fallen  back  upon  as  a  true  command 
of  God,  with  the  same  perfect  reliance  with  which  we 
fall  back  upon  a  command  of  the  Gospel.  But  it  is  evi- 
dent that  this  command  was  made  with  a  reserve,  and 
that  it  is  a  command  in  a  different  sense  from  that  of  any 
command  given  under  the  Gospel.  A  Divine  com- 


with  the  Morality  of  her  Age.  159 

mand  to  undertake  a  war  of  extermination  could 
only,  to  begin  with,  necessarily  have  been  a  command 
by  condescension  to  the  defective  state  of  man's  moral 
perceptions  in  that  age.  It  was  impossible,  as  has 
been  said  in  the  foregoing  Lectures,  that  people  could 
have  acknowledged  a  Divine  command  to  make  war 
in  such  a  manner  as  this,  unless  they  were  themselves 
at  the  time  under  defective  and  erroneous  moral  con- 
ceptions. Thus  a  command  with  a  reserve,  in 
accommodation  to  man's  ignorance  or  infirmity,  is 
not  really  a  command  of  God,  because  what  it 
starts  from  is  the  evil  in  man,  and  not  the  perfect 
good  in  the  Divine  will.  Jael  having  accepted  a  dis- 
pensation of  accommodation  to  evil,  has  not  the  ground 
for  availing  herself  of  a  perfectly-justifying  defence, 
and  such  a  defence  is  wasted  upon  her  position. 
Another  explanation  suits  her,  which  does  not  profess 
to  be  full  justification,  but  which  does  give  her  the 
shelter  of  a  particular  dispensation. 

The  great  omission,  as  we  have  seen,  in  the  mind 
of  that  age  was  the  omission  of  the  idea  of  human 
individuality.  When  children  were  destroyed  on  ac- 
count of  the  sin  of  the  father,  and  nations  were 
destroyed  on  account  of  the  sins  of  certain  portions  of 
them  :  when,  in  fact,  human  sin  was  treated  en  masse, 
and  not  as  a  question  relating  to  the  individual  only 
— such'  defective  and  unsound  ideas  of  mankind  on 
human  individuality  became  an  immediate  cause  of  the 
rude  and  barbarous  acts  of  that  day.  There  are  two 
characteristics  of  Jael's  act :  there  is  the  destruc- 
tion of  life;  and  there  is  the  treachery.  It  is  her 


160  Connection  of  J ael' s  Act 

treachery  and  dissimulation,  as  has  been  said,  which 
have  produced  the  great  denunciation  of  her  act.  But 
the  omission  of  the  idea  of  human  individuality  takes 
away  at  bottom  equally  the  right  to  life  and  the 
right  to  truth.  It  is  upon  the  stand  of  his  own  in- 
dividuality that  man  claims  both  life  and  truth.  He 
has  a  right  to  his  life  being  respected  by  others,  and 
he  has  a  right  to  truth  at  the  hands  of  others,  because 
he  is  himself  a  man.  He  takes  his  stand  upon  himself. 
Immediately  he  is  regarded  as  an  appendage  to 
another — whether  that  other  be  an  individual,  a  family, 
or  a  nation — he  loses  the  intrinsic  rights  of  man 
whether  to  life  or  truth.  A  loose  notion  of  life  and 
a  loose  notion  of  truth  naturally  go  together ;  a  dim 
conception  of  the  property  and  a  defective  idea  of  the 
duty. 

When  the  Duke  of  Wellington  first  went  over 
to  India  he  made  the  remark  that  the  Hindus 
laboured  under  two  great  defects  in  their  moral  cha- 
racter— that  they  did  not  care  for  life,  and  they  did  not 
care  for  truth.1  The  putting  the  two  together  was  a 
just  piece  of  criticism,  and  showed  that  the  comment 
was  made  upon  a  basis  of  true  philosophy.  There 
must  be  a  due  sense  of  the  right  of  life  in  a  man, 
a  sense  of  his  individuality,  a  sense  of  the  existence 
of  the  personal  being,  in  himself  and  upon  his  own 
account,  before  his  right  to  truth  can  be  made  out. 
Truth-speaking  is  only  a  part  of  the  general  duty  of 
doing  to  others  as  we  would  be  done  by ;  the  right  to 
it  ceases  with  the  general  rights  of  man :  it  ceases 

1  Wellington's  Supplementary  Despatches,  vol.  i.  p.  1C. 


with  the  Morality  of  her  Age.  1 6 1 

with  the  fundamental  relations  of  man  to  man,  with 
the  necessary  claims  which  are  inherent  in  man  as 
fellow  with  man.  A  man  must  first  have  a  right  to 
his  own  existence,  and  then  he  may  have  a  right  to 
something  further ;  but  before  everything  else  he 
must  be  treated  as  an  individual  being.  But  the 
early  dispensation  under  which  man  was  living  then, 
did  not  treat  him  as  such,  because  it  appended 
him  to  something  which  was  not  himself,  in  the  in- 
fliction of  punishment  and  on  the  question  of  life. 
There  must  have  been  inadequate  ideas  of  the  indivi- 
duality of  man  and  of  the  rights  of  human  life  before  a 
dispensation  could  have  been  received  which  enforced 
wars  of  extermination — wars  which  would  now  be 
contrary  to  morality, — for  the  reason  that  eur  ideas  on 
the  subject  of  human  individuality  and  the  rights  of 
life  are  completely  changed,  and  that  we  have  been 
enlightened  on  these  subjects  upon  which  the  early  ages 
of  mankind  were  in  the  dark.  But  when  man  was 
not  treated  as  a  person,  as  an  individual  being, — when 
he  had  not  the  right  to  life,  he  had  not  the  right  to 
truth-speaking  either.  What  is  the  meaning  of  being- 
obliged  to  speak  truth  to  one  who  is  not  a  person ; 
obliged  to  speak  truth  to  one  who  is  not  a  substance ; 
and  who  is  not  a  being  ?  He  must  be  something  sub- 
stantial and  must  be  something  in  himself,  to  whom 
truth  must  be  spoken.  A  man  who  has  not  the  right 
to  his  own  existence,  has  lost  the  right  to  have  truth 
spoken  to  him  also.  Deborah  acted  then  from  prin- 
ciples of  reason,  when  she  gathered  from  the  right  to 
destroy  life,  the  right  to  disguise  truth  too, — when  she 

M 


1 62  Connection  of  J ael' s  Act 

passed  her  imprimatur  upon  both  the  characteristics  of 
Jael's  act ; — when  she  looked  upon  Sisera  as  an  outlaw, 
and  a  man  without  rights  to  truth,  as  soon  as  ever  it 
was  clear  he  had  no  right  to  his  own  life.  The  dispen- 
sation justified  in  the  violation  of  life,  the  violation  of 
truth  ;  the  violation  of  life  was  the  violation  of  truth ; 
justice  and  truth  were  the  same  thing :  if  Sisera  was 
killed  because  being  a  Canaanite  he  had  not  the  right 
to  life,  it  was  a  much  lighter  thing  to  say  that  being 
a  Canaanite  he  had  not  a  right  to  have  truth  spoken 
to  him. 

Does  the  historical  defence,  then,  of  Jael's  act,  in 
the  last  Lecture,  imply  that  it  meets  with  the  approba- 
tion of  Scripture  generally,  and  that  it  was  a  good  act 
according  to  the  principles  laid  down  in  Scripture  as 
a  whole  ?  The  only  part  of  Scripture,  which  at  all 
witnesses  upon  this  point,  and  commits  Scripture, 
according  to  any  standard,  to  an  approbation  of  the  act 
of  Jael,  is  Deborah's  praise  of  the  act.  The  narrative 
itself  only  records  the  fact,  and  expresses  no  opinion  of 
Scripture  upon  it.  But  Deborah's  praise  is  clear  and 
decided,  and  she  declares  that  Jael  "  is  blessed  above 
women"  on  account  of  this  act.  Deborah  was  an 
inspired  prophetess,  and  her  approval  of  the  act  is 
identical  with  the  approval  of  Scripture. 

But  what  is  the  moral  standard  which  Deborah 
acknowledges  when  she  praises  the  act  of  Jael,  and 
according  to  what  standard  is  her  praise  given  ?  It  is 
evident  that  this  makes  all  the  difference  in  the  nature 
of  the  praise,  and  upon  the  question  whether  it  was 
praise  in  the  fullest  sense  or  not.  This  praise  is  obviously 


with  the  Morality  of  her  Age.  163 

given,  then,  according  to  the  standard  of  the  time,  as 
involved  in  the  dispensation  of  the  time,  publicly 
received  in  the  Israelitish  body  of  that  day  as  a  reli- 
gious community.  This  was  the  only  standard  which 
was  known  to  Deborah ;  and  it  was  impossible  that  she 
should  give  her  praise  upon  any  other.  It  is  sometimes 
vaguely  supposed  that  when  an  act  is  praised  in  Scrip- 
ture, it  receives  the  praise  of  Scripture  as  a  whole,  and 
must  therefore  be  an  act  absolutely  good  and  correct, 
and  equal  to  bearing  the  strictest  examination  in  a 
court  of  morals  under  any  dispensation,  and  in  any  age 
of  the  world.  But  to  suppose  this,  is  to  suppose  a 
totally  different  structure  of  Scripture  and  revelation 
from  the  real  one ;  it  is  totally  to  overlook  the  very 
principles  which  our  Lord  assumes  in  his  Sermon  on  the 
Mount.  The  revelation  which  is  made  in  Scripture  is 
made  up  of  different  dispensations ;  and  different  suc- 
cessive manifestations  of  God's  will  and  character.  The 
only  dispensation  which  was  known  to  Deborah  was  the 
dispensation  under  which  she  lived, — the  dispensation 
under  which  the  Israelites  established  themselves  in 
Canaan.  But  this  dispensation  was  in  no  disagreement 
whatever  with  the  estimate  of  the  act  of  Jael  as  a 
virtuous  and  a  right  act.  It  was  a  dispensation  which 
supposed  a  defective  state  of  moral  ideas  in  the  people, 
and  which  required  for  its  own  reception  an  erroneous 
standard  of  morals.  The  praise  therefore  bestowed  under 
that  dispensation  upon  a  particular  act,  did  not  imply 
moral  correctness,  according  to  a  universal  standard,  in 
that  act ;  did  not  satisfy  the  Bible  as  a  whole,  because 
it  satisfied  a  part  of  the  Bible.  Deborah  represented  the 


164  Connection  of  Jael's  Act 

dispensation  of  the  time,  and  Jael  satisfied  the  dispen- 
sation of  the  time.  Deborah's  praise,  therefore,  was 
worthily  given ;  but  it  did  not  imply  its  being  given 
according  to  a  universal  standard. 

And  this  consideration  decides  the  sense  of  De- 
borah's praise  of  the  treachery,  as  well  as  the  homicide. 
Deborah  contemplates  both  the  treachery  and  the 
homicide,  and  it  does  not  stop  her  praise,  — "  She 
brought  forth  butter  in  a  lordly  dish.  She  put  her 
hand  to  the  nail,  and  her  right  hand  to  the  hammer." 
This  was  praise  of  the  act  in  its  twofold  character  of 
dissimulation  and  destruction.  It  was  obviously  not 
the  idea  of  Deborah  that  there  was  anything  wrong  in 
either;  the  whole  act  counts  as  a  noble  manifesta- 
tion of  religious  zeal.  But  the  truth  is,  that  the  dis- 
pensation of  the  time  tolerated  both  ;  it  tolerated  both 
and  it  justified  both,  by  virtue  of  that  one  single  omis- 
sion which  was  made  at  the  foundation  of  the  dispen- 
sation ;  viz.,  the  omission  of  the  idea  of  human  indi- 
viduality. The  dispensation  was  compelled  to  accom- 
modate itself  to  the  omission  of  this  primary  idea, 
because  it  was  compelled  to  take  man  as  he  was ;  and 
he  had  not  yet,  in  this  stage  of  his  growth,  attained 
to  this  full  idea.  I  say  that  Deborah,  in  pronouncing 
the  act  of  Jael  good,  pronounced  it  to  be  good  ac- 
cording to  a  particular  dispensation.  "Whether  an  act 
is  good  or  not  in  itself  and  universally,  is  a  question  of 
moral  philosophy  ;  but  whether  it  is  good  according  to 
a  particular  dispensation  is  not  a  question  of  moral 
philosophy  but  a  question  of  simple  history.  It  is 
simply  to  say,  Was  this  act  considered  as  a  fact  to 


with  the  Morality  of  her  Age.  165 

be  good  by  persons  competent  to  estimate  it  who 
lived  under  that  dispensation  ?  And  upon  that 
question  is  not  Deborah  as  good  a  witness  as  we  can 
find  ?  Who  is  judge  of  what  was  a  good  act  under 
that  dispensation  if  Deborah  is  not  ?  The  act,  by 
being  praised  by  Deborah,  proved  itself  to  be  a  good 
act  according  to  that  standard  ;  an  act  of  morality, 
according  to  her  own  dispensation.  She  was  by  position 
a  judge ;  and  to  be  praised  by  her  was  equivalent  to 
saying  it  was  good  according  to  that  dispensation. 

But  though  a  good  act  according  to  a  dispensation, 
— an  act  of  faith,  an  act  of  love  to  Israel, — a  Christian 
could  not  have  done  it,  for  the  simple  reason  that  he 
could  not  have  accepted  that  dispensation  by  the  autho- 
rity of  which  it  was  done,  by  virtue  of  which  Sisera  be- 
came an  outlaw,  deprived  of  the  right  to  life.  No  Divine 
command  to  destroy  Sisera,  apart  from  all  reasons  of 
human  law,  could  have  been  acknowledged  by  a  Chris- 
tian ;  and  therefore,  inasmuch  as  the  act  could  only 
be  justifiable  on  the  supposition  of  a  Divine  command 
to  do  it,  a  Christian  is  necessarily  without  evidence  of 
the  only  justifying  reason  which  could  exist  in  the 
case.  Christians  have  indeed  sometimes  acted  upon 
Old  Testament  precedents,  to  which  they  have  given 
their  own  application,  but  the  use  of  such  precedents 
at  all  has  been  wholly  condemned  by  the  Christian 
Church.  Such  acts  as  that  of  Jacob  Clement  and 
Eavaillac  have  had  sentence  passed  on  them  as  being 
simply  immoral  acts,  and  unable  to  be  taken  out  of 
the  catalogue  of  murders.  Doubtless  such  acts  under 
an  early  dispensation  were  very  different  acts,  and 


1 66  Connection  of  Jaefs  Act 

hold  a  very  different  moral  rank ;  but  when  revived 
under  a  Christian  light,  they  appear  only  as  horrible 
and  false ;  as  lapses  from  a  perfect  dispensation  to  an 
imperfect,  and  from  a  dispensation  of  knowledge  and 
light  to  one  of  ignorance  and  darkness. 

But  -though  it  could  not  have  been  done  by  a 
Christian,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  act  of 
Jael  was  a  grand  though  extreme  specimen  of  that 
type  of  act  which  is  produced  by  the  proverb,  Love 
your  friend  and  hate  your  enemy.  The  act  has 
everything  to  do  both  with  a  friend  and  an  enemy. 
Sisera  is  an  enemy  in  the  deepest  sense,  as  being  an 
enemy  of  the  adopted  people  of  God.  Here,  then, 
Jael  was  only  an  enemy.  But  turn  from  the  attitude 
of  Jael  toward  the  enemy,  and  you  see  immediately 
the  friend.  In  her  resolute  rescue  of  Israel  from  the 
hand  of  the  great  Canaanite,  in  her  summary  suppres- 
sion of  what  would  have  been  the  seed  of  another 
invasion — the  return  of  Sisera  to  Hazor  to  renew  his 
plots  and  hostilities, — here  is  the  friend.  People  have 
generally  only  Sisera  before  them  in  contemplating 
this  act;  but  Israel  ought  to  be  the  principal  object. 
The  enemy  ought  not  to  occupy  our  minds,  without 
the  friend, — and  the  feelings  toward  the  friend,— 
coming  in  to  give  the  act  its  explanation,  and  invest 
it  with  its  main  motive.  The  act  at  first  sight  appears 
a  solitary  act,  and  the  agent  appears  devoted  only  to 
her  one  dreadful  work;  but  we  have  only  to  look 
around,  and  we  see  enthusiastic  devotion  to  the 
Israelitish  body ;  whose  rescue  from  the  enemy  is  evi- 
dently the  great  stimulus  to  the  act.  While  showing 


with  the  Morality  of  her  Age.  167 

the  ferocity  and  dissimulation  considered  due  to  an 
enemy,  it  gratifies  a  lofty  partizanship  for  the  people 
of  God,  and  unbounded  fervour  for  a  cause.  It  is  an 
act  with  all  the  warmth  and  public  affection  in  it, 
which  a  public  person  gives  to  a  great  cause,  who 
is  determined  that  that  cause  shall  not  lose  at 
all  in  his  hands.  Israel  shall  suffer  no  longer  from 
fear  of  the  enemy.  The  act  thoroughly  adopted 
the  great  precept  of  the  older  dispensation,1  and  hers 
was  obviously  just  the  character  that  carried  out  the 
precept  to  the  utmost.  The  older  dispensation 
divided  the  world  in  two,  as  regards  moral  relations 
toward  them,  and  presented  two  objects, — one  which 
naturally  called  for  injury,  and  the  other  for  love. 
So  coupled  together  are  the  friend  and  the  enemy, 
that  even  in  the  perpetration  of  the  most  violent 
deeds  upon  the  enemy,  one  sees  on  the  other  side  the 
overflowing  friend.  It  is  a  real  double  side  of  a  man; 
he  really  hates  on  one  side  and  really  loves  on  the 
other.  That  is  the  operation  of  the  dispensation  :  it 
is  real  feeling  both  ways.  The  law  does  not  admit  of 
neutrality  and  ambiguity ;  still  less  does  it  admit  of 
enmity  only  :  it  is  a  law  of  enmity  and  love  both.  It 
does  not  allow  of  the  affectionate  side  of  a  man  being 
chilled,  or  of  a  man's  heart  being  nipped  and  blighted 
by  hostile  and  malicious  thought,  which  is  a  common 
effect  of  carrying  out  hostile  feelings ;  it  supposes 
with  enmity,  love ;  the  two  sets  of  feelings  are  really 
in  full  play  toward  their  respective  proper  objects. 
In  Jael's  act  we  see  both  the  enemy  toward  whom, 

1  Matt.  v.  43. 


1 68  Connection  of  Jael's  Act 

and  friend  for  whom  it  is  done.  Both  are  implanted 
in  the  act,  and  the  ardent  rescue  is  as  conspicuous  as 
the  dreadful  death.  Deborah's  thanksgiving  reveals 
on  the  enemy's  side  irretrievable  ruin,  and  on  Israel's 
the  completeness  of  triumph.  / 

With  respect  alike  to  the  charge  of  homicide  and 
treachery,  Jael  must  be  taken  in  connection  with  the 
facts  of  her  day.  What  she  thought  upon  the  right 
to  life,  and  what  she  thought  upon  the  right  to  truth, 
was  only  a  consequence  of  the  fundamental  want  in 
the  ideas  of  the  age — the  idea  of  man,  in  which  his 
attributes  and  his  rights  were  alike  contained.  We 
find  her  enthusiastically  joining  in  a  war  of  extirpa- 
tion, which  is  a  plain  violation  of  the  rights  of  life  in 
the  individual;  and  this  primary  want  of  respect  for 
man  is  the  necessary  foundation  of  the  subordinate 
want  of  respect  for  truth.  But  the  faults  of  the  age 
leave  in  the  act  the  faith  of  the  individual;  the  frater- 
nisation with  the  good,  the  acknowledgment  of  pro- 
phecy, the  look  forward  to  the  future.  It  would  be 
useless  to  frame  for  Jael's  conduct  a  rationale,  which 
would  present  it  to  us  as  satisfying  a  later  and  •  a 
Christian  standard  of  morality.  We  find  another 
standard  at  that  time  in  occupation  of  the  world,  and 
marking  the  dominion  of  the  unenlightened  mind. 
But  it  should  never  be  forgotten  that  this  act  was  an 
act  of  true  religious  zeal  done  in  defence  of  religion, 
and  for  the  preservation  of  a  Divine  dispensation  in 
the  world,  against  idolatry,  polytheism,  and  corrup- 
tion of  morals. 

Not  that  the  true  idea  of  man  was  entirely  want- 


with  the  Morality  of  her  Age.  169 

ing  in  the  age  of  the  older  dispensation, — far  from  it ; 
and  still  less  that  the  offshoots  of  it  were  wholly  want- 
ing,— the  respect  for  life  and  the  respect  for  truth. 
The  idea  of  man  as  a  personal  and  individual  being  is 
contained  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  in  the  very 
account  of  the  creation  of  man.  That  man  was  made 
in  the  image  of  God  anticipates  the  whole  develop- 
ment of  man  as  an  individual  being,  with  his  attri- 
butes, his  rights,  and  his  prospects.  Truth  was 
enforced  in  the  ninth  commandment.  There  were  two 
opposing  principles  in  the  old  dispensation  ;  there  was 
the  idea  of  man  as  ,a  mere  appendage  to  something 
without  him,  some  body  or  some  individual  with 
which  he  was  identified  in  guilt  and  in  punishment,  and 
in  which  his  personality  was  absorbed,  so  that  he  was 
killed  if  the  other  being  was  guilty ;  and,  struggling 
with  this  idea  of  man,  as  a  reflection  or  an  appendage 
to  something  else,  there  was  the  other  idea  of  him  as  a 
substantial  being  who  had  his  existence  in  himself,  and 
whose  life  was  his  own  property,  and  could  only  be  lost 
by  his  own  act.  The  last  of  these  two  ideas  must 
have  existed  from  the  first,  in  order  to  be  developed 
so  fully  as  it  ultimately  was :  to  be  the  seed  of  a  great 
future,  it  must  have  had  a  place  all  along ;  but  still  it 
was  the  seed  at  first  rather  than  the  mature  idea. 
One  estimate  of  man  conflicted  with  another: — one 
which  deprived  him  of  fundamental  rights  and  of 
justice,  with  one  which  announced  that  he  was  made 
in  the  image  of  God.  The  latter  had  the  strength  of 
reason  on  its  side,  and  as  a  matter  of  course  gained  the 
victory  over  a  temporary  principle. 


1 70  Connection  of  Jael's  Act 

The  general  aim  of  the  foregoing  observations  has 
been  to  show  that  the  act  of  Jael  arose  out  of  the  dis- 
pensation, that  it  represents  the  dispensation,  and  that 
it  does  not  represent  the  individual  only.  Did  the  act 
represent  the  individual  only,  it  would  have  been 
a  great  mistake  in  Deborah  to  put  the  prophetical 
imprimatur  upon  it,  and  incorporate  it  in  the  Scrip- 
ture of  the  old  dispensation.  But  it  was  not  the  act 
of  an  individual  only ;  it  was  an  act  which  repre- 
sented a  dispensation.  That  dispensation  starts  with 
the  sanction  of  a  class  of  actions  which  could  not 
be  done  by  an  enlightened  people  with  full  and 
mature  moral  perceptions.  There  was  therefore  no 
reason  why  its  sanction  should  not  be  given  to  an  act 
like  that  of  Jael.  The  dispensation  did  not  respect 
the  rights  of  man  to  life ;  it  was  no  more  then,  than  an 
agreement  with  such  a  foundation  that  it  should  not 
respect  the  rights  of  man  to  truth ;  and  that,  when  a 
great  enemy  of  the  sacred  nation  lost  one  right,  he  lost 
the  other  too.  Both  rights  were  in  fact  lost  in  the 
one  omission  of  the  primary  idea  of  individuality, 
which  deprived  man  of  the  standing  ground  upon 
which  the  two  important  claims  were  built.  That  the 
act  did  represent  the  dispensation  is  shown  in  truth 
by  the  mere  fact  of  the  praise  of  Deborah  having  been 
bestowed  upon  it ;  for  a  good  act,  according  to  the 
standard  of  a  particular  dispensation,  is  a  simple  mat- 
ter for  historical  evidence;  and  is  shown  in  the  fact  of 
competent  persons,  under  the  dispensation,  acknow- 
ledging and  publishing  its  merits. 

Let  us  compare  an  early  dispensation  with  early 


with  the  Morality  of  her  Age.  171 

states  of  society  in  respect  to  these  clouds  upon  them. 
We  know  it  is  one  great  point  of  comparison  between 
civilisation  and  barbarism,  the  mode  in  which  they 
respectively  treat  human  life ;  and  it  may  be  added 
that  another  point  of  comparison  is  the  mode  in  which 
they  respectively  treat  truth.  In  civilisation  the 
theory  itself  imposes  respect  for  life  and  respect  for 
truth  both ;  but  it  can  hardly  be  said  to  do  so  with 
respect  to  either  in  barbarism.  .  One  conspicuous  point 
of  comparison  between  civilisation  and  barbarism  lies  in 
the  different  position  of  lying :  it  reflects  disgrace,  theo- 
retically and  according  to  the  system  under  the  one,  but 
hardly  under  the  other.  A  rude  and  mixed  standard 
marks  the  dominion  of  the  uncivilised  mind.  There 
was  a  great  deal  of  generosity  in  the  mind  of  that 
day,  an  enthusiasm  for  nation,  family,  and  tribe,  and 
a  devotion  to  old  custom  and  law.  But  this  poetical 
framework  of  things  also  admitted  of  strong  special 
shapes  of  treachery  and  deceit,  and  of  these  rising  into 
great  prominence,  and  assuming  a  place  among  the 
characteristics  of  the  age  and  nation.  Wherever  the 
creed  of  Love  thy  friend  and  hate  thine  enemy,  in  short, 
is  the  established  creed,  deceit  and  treachery  become 
a  strong  popular  mode  of  action.  The  system  of  clan- 
ship especially  represented  this  old  maxim.  People 
were  faithful  and  loyal  to  their  own  tribe,  and  sacrificed 
themselves  for  it.  What  stories  have  come  down  to 
us  of  undying  affection,  of  indomitable  courage  and 
fidelity,  of  enthusiastic  adventure  !  But  with  the 
friend  there  was  the  enemy.  It  might  be  supposed  that 
two  perpetual  foes  would  sometimes  have  thought  for  a 


T  7  2  Connection  of  Jael's  Act 

moment  about  what  it  was  which  made  them  so ;  why- 
it  was  that  they  must  always  be  fighting :  the  rationale 
of  national  animosity  must  sometimes  have  puzzled 
them  ;  what  it  was  that  made  hatred  an  original  neces- 
sity for  each  :  but  in  truth  such  investigation  was 
entirely  out  of  their  way;  they  had  never  known 
themselves  other  than  enemies ;  enmity  therefore  was 
to  them  a  law  of  nature. 

Such  was  the  doctrine  of  an  enemy,  and  it  was 
the  infallible  effect  of  the  doctrine  to  produce  deceit. 
In  rude  ages  "the  enemy"  was  a  character  which 
emerged ; — one  of  the  actual  dramatis  personce  of 
the  scene  —  to  whom  the  popular  belief  attached 
that  it  was  lawful  to  lie  to  him,  and  that  he  had 
ceased  to  be  our  neighbour  or  our  brother;  that 
fellowship  was  over,  and  that  with  the  ground  of 
communion  and  fellowship  the  duty  of  veracity  had 
ceased.  That  duty  being  only  the  expression  of  the 
fact  that  we  are  members  one  of  another,  men  had 
no  right  to  it  when  they  were  natural  enemies.  The 
enemy  was  one  who  was  out  of  the  pale  of  charity,  and 
with  whom  injurious  relations  were  natural.  But  if  in- 
jurious relations  were  natural,  untruthful  relations  were 
natural  also  (Note  5).  It  is  thus  that  in  early  rude  ages, 
and  in  the  periods  of  tribe  or  clan,  where  the  sword  takes 
so  prominent  a  part,  deceit  takes  an  equally  prominent 
part.  The  one  law  is  made  to  flow  in  thought  logically 
from  the  other.  The  sword  takes  away  life ;  he  has  no 
right  to  truth-speaking  who  has  no  right  to  life.  The 
period  of  combat,  violence,  and  open  carnage,  thus 
becomes  specially  a  period  of  trick,  stratagem,  and 


with  the  Morality  of  her  Age.  1 73 

falsehood  too.  As  the  "  enemy"  was  the  natural 
object  of  violence,  he  was  the  natural  victim  of  a  lie  ; 
and  rude  forms  of  society  fostered  a  remarkable  and 
subtle  mixture  of  character.  You  would  have  ex- 
pected, at  first  view,  that  the  qualities  which  this 
period  and  kind  of  life  would  have  fostered,  would 
have  been  the  open  and  daring  ones,  and  these 
exclusively  or  chiefly;  that  they  would  have  raised 
the  test  of  physical  courage  and  daring,  and  would 
have  encouraged  with  these  open  robbery,  violence,  and 
aggression ;  but  that  they  would  not  have  given  their 
countenance  to  treachery,  dissimulation,  and  underhand 
dealings.  But  on  looking  into  the  modes  of  acting  and 
the  pervading  models  of  rude  times,  we  find  an  over- 
whelming quantity  of  fraud  and  deceit.  They  impose 
upon  one  another,  fabricate  intricate  plots,  and  con- 
struct subtle  measures ;  stratagem  and  conspiracy 
constituting  their  prominent  course  of  action.  They 
adopt  what  is  necessary.  They  find  that  deceit  is  neces- 
sary for  them,  in  order  to  produce  anything  formidable, 
to  gather  things  to  a  head,  and  bring  any  move  of  the 
tribe,  or  of  a  party,  to  its  proper  strength ;  to  collect 
resources  in  such  a  shape  as  to  secure  success. 
Although,  therefore,  on  the  one  side  they  have  the 
roughness  of  defiance,  impulse,  and  impetuosity,  on 
the  other,  their  whole  line  of  conduct  is  underhand. 
The  daring  temper  is  quite  consistent  with  the  deceit- 
ful. They  must  do  what  is  effectual,  and  underground 
work  is  effectual.  Men  dissimulate  in  order  to  strike 
a  great  blow  when  it  is  wanted  ;  and  treacherous  con- 


1 74  Connection  of  J act's  Act 

cealment  tells  at  last.  Eude  times,  on  the  same 
principle  on  which  they  use  force,  use  deceit. 

But  the  man  being  true  to  his  clan  and  to  his 
neighbour,  treachery  became  a  special  and  local  quality, 
and  was  prevented  from  entering  completely  into  the 
general  character  by  virtue  of  its  confinement  to  "  the 
enemy. "  A  man  was  false  in  a  hostile  relation ;  but 
only  see  him  as  a  neighbour,  and  he  was  true. 

But  not  only  this,  the  principle  once  admitted 
of  loving  friends  and  hating  enemies,  the  two  kinds 
of  action,  true  and  false,  become  a  natural  alterna- 
tion. They  are  so  hearty  in  both  that  they  never 
think  of  those  to  whom  they  are  false  without  thinking 
of  those  to  whom  they  are  true.  As  a  piece  of  treachery 
is  played  on  one  side,  an  image  meets  them  from  the 
other  side  of  bright  and  spotless  fidelity.  They  know 
they  do  everything  for  their  friends, — go  through 
any  sacrifice.  Their  very  treachery,  -then,  looks 
different  according  to  its  company.  Lying  is  the 
natural  dealing  with  the  enemy,  as  truth  is  the  natural 
dealing  with  the  friend.  There  is  therefore  nothing  to 
apologise  for  in  lying ;  he  only  gets  it  who  deserves  it, 
and  to  whom  it  is  natural  conduct.  A  lie  accompanies 
truth  as  the  shadow  the  substance. 

The  creed  of  Love  your  friend  and  hate  your  enemy 
thus  produced,  as  its  natural  consequence,  falsehood. 
The  circumstances  of  the  world,  indeed,  produce  various 
modifications  and  shades  of  the  character  of  the 
"  enemy."  He  is  not  always  a  person  who  aims  at 
life,  and  must  be  met  by  an  equal  blow ;  he  is  only 
one  who  exists  in  some  injurious  relation  to  you.  But 


with  the  Morality  of  her  Age.  175 

in  proportion  as  a  natural  law  of  hostility  exists  under 
any  form,  so  a  natural  law  of  untruthfulness  follows  as 
a  consequence.  Thus  in  the  old-fashioned  school  of 
former  days,  when  the  schoolmaster  figured  in  the 
boyish  imagination  as  a  natural  enemy,  he  was  also 
the  natural  recipient  of  a  falsehood.  It  was  a  different 
thing  to  tell  a  lie  to  the  master  and  to  tell  a  lie  to  any 
one  else.  The  constitutional  enmity  which  attached  to 
his  position,  whereby  he  was  the  chastiser  of  faults  and 
persecutor  of  indolence,  was  held  also  a  justification 
of  exceptional  morals  in  the  boy.  The  character  of  an 
enemy  and  the  shield  of  an  untruth  against  him  went 
together ;  and  when  the  hostile  fiction  was  adopted, 
this  result,  upon  a  question  of  truth,  was  its  natural 
consequence.  But  deceit  toward  a  master  was  a 
local  species  of  deceit.  It  did  not  enter  into  the 
general  character,  but  was  consistent  with  truth  and 
openness  to  others.  It  followed  a  traditional  casuistry, 
which  confined  itself  to  the  school,  and  was  cast  off 
when  the  school  was  exchanged  for  general  society 
and  life. 

Some  sort  of  lying  is,  then,  we  find,  attached 
to  esprit  de  corps  wherever  it  is  excessive  or  un- 
disciplined. It  comes  before  us  as  a  social  thing. 
Men  who  carry  on  a  piece  of  deceit  together  are  bound 
and  united  together  by  it ;  if  there  is  a  tradition,  a  sen- 
timent, an  association  of  blood  or  tribe  connected  with 
it, — a  religious  cause  involved  in  it,  they  are  the  more 
bound  by  it  (Note  6).  A  lie  is  a  sort  of  Eoman  sacra- 
mentum  by  which  men  devote  themselves  to  a  cause. 
They  thereby  enter  into  an  engagement  which  commits 


1 76  Connection  of  Jael's  Act 

them  to  an  extraordinary  interest  in  a  common  object. 
A  lie  is  regarded  as  a  romantic  offering  to  a  party  or 
cause.  When  it  is  made  corporately  and  in  common,  by 
a  number,  it  inspires  them  with  the  sense  of  a  common 
sacrifice.  Thus  conspiracies  are  eminently  social,  and 
act  as  bonds  of  union ;  though  these  contracted  unions 
break  up,  and  are  apt  to  turn  to  enmities.  The  com- 
mon form  of  lying  is  then  selfish  and  solitary ;  but 
another  form  of  it  is  corporate  and  sympathetic.  It 
witnesses  to  a  strong  attachment  to  a  body.  The  clan 
and  the  tribe  feel  themselves  consecrated  by  patriotic 
treachery  achieved  for  their  sake,  and  the  public  spirit  of 
that  age  takes  up  deceit  which  studies  effectiveness  and 
aims  vigorously  at  results.  They  see  in  deceit  a  power 
which  gathers  together  resources,  and  brings  combina- 
tion to  a  head.  The  cause  grows  by  the  individual 
sacrifice,  and  the  lie  flatters  the  esprit  de  corps,  and 
connects  itself  with  sympathy  for  country  and  public 
ends. 

When  from  these  facts,  connected  with  deceit  and 
its  place  in  the  morals  of  mankind  in  the  rude  eras  of 
secular  history,  we  go  to  the  act  of  Jael,  the  root  of 
esprit  de  corps  is  not  conspicuous  at  first ;  no  crowd  is 
near  her  to  carry  off  the  act  as  a  popular  one  done  for 
a  whole  nation  or  cause.  She  does  it  by  herself.  It 
is  a  solitary  act.  But  it  is  plain,  when  we  go  into  the 
circumstances,  that  this  solitary  act  is  done  as  really 
in  defence  of  a  whole  people, — is  as  complete  a  sacrifice 
of  herself  to  the  Israelitish  cause,  and  to  a  sacred  party 
spirit, — as  if  it  had  been  done  with  all  Israel  by.  The 
act  is  upon  the  type  of  the  deceit  of  early  ages,  it  is 


with  the  Morality  of  her  Age.  1 77 

public-spirited,  and  strongly  sympathetic.  She  has  the 
whole  religious  cause  and  movement  before  her  eyes. 
She  is  in  intimate  relations  with  Deborah  and  the 
leaders  of  Israel,  and  she  knows  she  is  conferring  an 
enormous  and  incalculable  benefit  on  the  cause  of  Israel. 
The  very  lie  which  she  tells  for  that  cause,  so  far  from 
being  a  solitary  and  unsocial  act,  has  in  it  the  most 
intense  spirit  of  public  life,  and  impersonates  the  whole 
animus  of  public  partizanship. 

Eemarks  such  as  these  would  naturally  involve, 
did  we  follow  them  up,  a  general  comparison  of 
barbarism  and  civilisation,  especially  upon  the  subject 
of  truthfulness  and  that  class  of  virtues.  We  are  in 
the  first  place  apt  to  suppose  that  a  rude  age  is  as  a 
matter  of  course  a  simple  one  ;  we  imagine  greater 
transparency  and  sincerity.  But  do  facts  agree  ?  If 
there  is  anything  with  which  human  nature  shows  an 
early  acquaintance,  it  is  with  the  fact  that  on  the  sub- 
ject of  truth  the  faculty  of  speech  is  absolutely 
neutral,  and  ready  to  accommodate  itself  perfectly 
to  either  side.  The  whole  apparatus  of  language  fits 
in  with  a  lie,  and  is  entirely  at  its  service  ;  it  is  as 
ready  an  instrument  for  the  use  of  falsehood  as  of 
truth.  This  is  one  of  the  first  observations  of  experi- 
ence. A  lie  is  an  instrument,  a  means  to  an  end,  and 
it  possesses  in  an  extraordinary  degree  the  virtue  of 
an  instrument — great  facility  of  appliance.  A  lie  is  in 
its  very  nature  perfectly  easy.  It  is  produced  by  the 
simple  powers  of  speech.  The  powers  of  speech  are 

not  in  themselves  allied   specially  to,  nor  have  any 

N 


178  Connection  of  Jael's  Act 

bias  to,  truth;  the  tongue  obeys  the  will  in  either 
direction.  If  a  person  wishes  to  say  what  is  not  true, 
he  can  say  it  with  absolute  promptness.  The  state 
of  things  in  the  early  ages  shows  a  mind  that  made 
the  largest  use  of  such  a  liberty  as  this,  and  what 
followed  from  such  an  option  being  left  to  human 
discretion.  (Note  7.) 

The  great  principle  in  man  which  opposed  lying 
was  the  idea  of  the  individuality  of  man.  His  per- 
sonality made  him  worthy  of  truth;  but  the 
general  progress  of  man  aided  in  that  improvement. 
Doubtless  civilisation  has  in  it  all  that  pampers 
human  nature,  that  brings  out  his  appetites  and  aims, 
and  furnishes  a  rich  feast;  and  whatever  tempts 
human  nature  and  makes  it  wish  strongly,  tempts 
it  to  lie — only  regarding  lying  as  means  to  an  end,  a 
mode  of  getting  things  it  wants  to  get.  But  civilisa- 
tion has  much  in  it  which  is  coercive  of  lying,  and 
inducive  to  truth.  It  develops  industry ;  people  begin 
to  recognise  that  labour  is  profitable ;  stated  wages 
are  an  enlightening ;  regular  avenues  push  aside 
irregular;  respectable  motives,  honourable  stimulus, 
and  plain  truth,  compose  a  formidable  phalanx.  The 
system  of  trade,  with  its  direct  modes  of  return,  makes 
everything  understood,  and  shows  off  plain  dealing  at 
an  advantage.  The  wheels  and  machinery  of  civilisa- 
tion advance  reputation  as  an  inducement,  and  by 
bringing  it  within  reach  of  all,  give  it  new  influence 
as  a  motive  of  action.  Although,  then,  it  is  with  a 
mixture,  it  aids  the  great  law  of  truth  and  the 


with  the  Morality  of  her  Age.  1 79 

true  idea  of  man.  Distant  views  out  of  our  range 
have  an  enchantment,  and  appeal  to  a  poetical  look ; 
but  we  see  the  vast  amount  of  real  power  which 
civilisation  throws  on  the  side  of  honesty  and  plain 
dealing. 


LECTURE    VIII. 

THE  LAW  OF  RETALIATION. 

TF  one  had  to  describe  shortly  the  defect  of  recent 
criticism  upon  the  Old  Testament,  one  would 
say  that  it  did  not  make  allowance  for  the  necessities 
of  a  progressive  revelation.  The  Jewish  dispensation 
was  a  progressive  revelation,  i.e.,  it  did  not  promul- 
gate at  once  what  was  absolutely  true  in  religion  or 
morals,  but  prepared  people  for  it.  But  it  was  not 
only  a  progressive  revelation  which  had  its  end  and 
scope  in  the  distant  future,  it  was  a  progressive 
revelation  which  had  also  to  legislate  for  the  im-, 
mediate  present.  That  was  a  remarkable  combina- 
tion ;  it  involved  a  peculiar  relation  of  the  Divine 
Instructor  and  Educator  to  His  pupil ;  and  it  was  the 
nucleus  of  the  whole  complex  character  of  the  old 
dispensation.  That  dispensation  acted  for  an  end; 
but  legislation  for  the  present  was  essential  to  its 
very  object  with  reference  to  that  end ;  essential  to 
the  very  object  of  ultimate  enlightenment.  Could 
mere  teaching  have  accomplished  this  end — a  sort  of 
standing  lecture  on  sublime  morals, — while  the  people 
in  all  other  respects  were  left  to  themselves  ?  In 
that  case  legislation  would  not  have  been  wanted ; 
but  it  is  evident  that  mere  teaching  would  not  have 


The  Law  of  Retaliation.  1 8 1 

done.  It  would  have  flown  over  their  heads  to  the 
last,  without  the  nation  ever  becoming  so  far  en- 
lightened as  to  understand  it.  No  ;  the  people  must 
be  brought  under  the  regular  influence  of  a  legislative 
code.  This  had  alone  a  training  and  a  moulding 
purpose.  But  legislation  must  be  legislation  for  the 
present  moment,  and  legislation  in  particulars,  follow- 
ing all  into  their  homes,  and  penetrating  into  their 
life.  A  people  under  Divine  guidance  for  a  future 
end  must  be  placed  under  laws  which  operate  now. 

But  such  legislation — legislation  under  such  con- 
ditions as  these — involves  immediately  the  principle 
of  accommodation,  on  the  part  of  the  Perfect  Legis- 
lator, to  an  existing  imperfect  moral  standard  in 
those  for  whom  He  legislates  ;  because  there  is  an 
interval  between  the  superior  and  directing  mind  of 
the  dispensation,  and  those  who  are  the  subjects  of 
the  dispensation,  which  can  only  be  bridged  over 
by  such  a  Divine  policy.  The  principle  of  accommo- 
dation, then,  is  necessary ;  but  what  and  how  much 
is  it  which  is  involved  in  a  principle  of  accommoda- 
tion? This  is  a  question  which  will  require  some 
consideration. 

There  is  plainly,  then,  in  the  first  place,  a  per- 
mission involved  in  the  principle  of  accommodation 
—  a  Divine  permission  —  of  an  imperfect  morality. 
God  permits  certain  classes  of  actions  which  He 
would  not  permit  in  Christians  ;  and  it  must  be 
noted  that  He  permits  them  in  a  very  different  sense 
from  that  in  which  He  permits  moral  evil,  as  simply 
allowing  it  to  take  place  in  the  world.  Those  who 


1 8  2  The  L  aw  of  Ret  a  liation. 

do  these  actions  are  in  favour  with.  Him,  are  in  cove- 
nant with  Him,  they  are  separated  from  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth  to  be  His  peculiar  people,  or  holy  nation. 
He  accepts  their  sacrifices,  answers  their  prayers,  and 
has  pleasure  in  their  services. 

So  far  we  have  got,  as  involved  in  the  principle 
of  accommodation;  i.e.,  to  permission.  But  in  truth, 
when  we  examine  it  in  actual  working,  we  find  that 
the  principle  of  accommodation  cannot  stop  at  per- 
mission. "When  a  Divine  dispensation  takes  up  a 
rude  and  primitive  people,  it  takes  them  up  not  only 
with  a  certain  standard  of  what  is  allowable  and  may 
be  done  established  among  them,  but  also  with  certain 
strong  ideas  of  what  is  right  and  ought  to  be  done ; 
certain  vigorous  notions  of  duty  and  of  obligations, 
which  exist  indeed  mixed  with  imperfections  and 
extravagance  in  their  mind,  but  which  really  involve 
moral  principle,  and  which  obviously  constitute  the 
goodness  of  the  individual  and  society  in  that  early 
stage  of  history.  "What  is  to  be  done  then  with  these 
classes  of  actions  ?  Is  the  Divine  Lawgiver,  the 
Divine  standing  Head  and  Euler  of  the  society,  only 
to  say  of  these  actions — I  permit  them.  That  would 
be  simply  to  relax  a  people's  whole  sense  of  moral  obli- 
gation ;  it  would  be  to  release  them  from  inaccurately 
and  coarsely  conceived  high  duties,  before  there  was 
time  for  the  growth  of  a  correcter  conception  of  them ; 
and  so  their  adoption  into  covenant  by  God  would  be 
a  moral  disadvantage  to  them  instead  of  an  improve- 
ment. It  is  not  competent  therefore  to  the  Divine 
Legislator  to  use  simply  permissive  language  of  these 


The  L  aw  of  Ret  alia  tion.  183 

popularly  conceived  duties ;  He  must  command  them. 
He  is  bound  to  keep  up  the  moral  sense  of  the  people 
to  its  present  height,  when  He  undertakes  to  raise  it 
ultimately  higher  ;  He  cannot  alter  therefore  the  shall 
of  these  duties  into  may ;  He  cannot  say,  You  may 
do  these  duties  if  you  like,  I  will  allow  you  to  do 
them ;  that  is  not  the  language  of  a  Lawgiver  who 
has  undertaken  to  keep  up  the  existing  moral  obli- 
gations in  a  people.  To  discontinue  these  duties  as 
injunctions,  and  exclude  them  from  the  express 
countenance  and  approval  of  the  dispensation,  would 
be  to  suppress  at  the  very  root  the  whole  purpose  of 
the  dispensation.  For  how  can  it  properly  fulfil  its 
object  of  correcting  and  improving  the  moral  standard 
of  men,  unless  it  first  maintains  in  obligation  the 
standard  which  already  exists  ?  This  is  all  it  has  to 
build  upon.  It  must  take  the  basis  which  is  given  to 
it ;  adopt  the  high  and  noble  action  of  mankind,  with 
its  extravagance,  roughness,  and  irregularity ;  and 
must  first  command  and  enjoin  it,  in  the  shape  in 
which  it  stands,  if  it  is  ever  to  effect  an  improvement 
in  it.  Those  rudely  delineated  conceptions  of  duty, 
which  it  intends  ultimately  to  purify  and  raise,  it 
must  first  impose.  To  take  away  from  a  Divine  dis- 
pensation the  right  of  thus  dealing  with  imperfect 
materials,  would  in  fact  be  to  exclude  the  Divine 
Being  from  the  government  and  direction  of  the  world 
for  any  purpose  of  changing  it  for  the  better ;  for  how 
can  He  act  upon  the  hearts  and  understandings  of 
men,  how  can  He  instruct  and  inform  them,  how  can 
He  regulate  and  elevate  their  moral  estimate,  except 


184  The  Law  of  Retaliation. 

through  the  medium  of  those  moral  ideas  which  then, 
at  the  time,  exist  in  them ;  which  must  therefore  be 
sustained  in  authority,  in  their  defective  phase,  if  they 
are  ever  to  be  raised  to  a  more  perfect  one  ?  To  shut 
the  Deity  out  of  this  sphere  of  imperfect  perception 
and  action,  and  to  forbid  Him  to  command  upon  this 
level,  is  to  take  man  out  of  His  jurisdiction  as  a  being 
to  be  improved,  and  throw  back  human  nature  upon 
itself.  And  thus  the  office,  once  assumed  by  God,  of 
legislating  for  a  rude  and  primitive  people  with  a 
view  to  their  ultimate  moral  improvement,  that  office 
involves  in  its  very  nature  both  Divine  permissions 
and  Divine  commands  to  do  actions  of  imperfect 
morality. 

1.  Take,  e.g.,  the  law  of  retaliation — an  eye  for  an 
eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth.  It  would  be  doing  in- 
justice to  this  law  to  regard  it  as  simply  legalising  the 
right  of  private  revenge ;  it  embodies  a  principle  of 
public  justice,  carried  out  in  that  form  which  justice 
has  sometimes  taken  in  early  ages ;  viz.,  that  a  wanton 
assailant  who  inflicts  an  injury  on  the  person  of  an- 
other should  be  punished  by  suffering  a  like  hurt 
himself.  This  was  doubtless  an  ancient  consuetudinary 
law  which  was  engrafted  from  a  general  Eastern  stock 
upon  the  Mosaic  code ;  and  it  was  a  law  which,  before 
legal  courts  penetrated  into  the  recesses  of  society, 
was  dispensed  and  executed  by  the  wronged  individual 
himself;  who  was  charged  with  the  double  office  of 
protecting  society  and  defending  himself;  and  who  in 
one  and  the  same  act  avenged  himself  and  vindicated 
the  rights  of  the  community  too.  Eetaliation  then,  in 


The  L  aw  of  Retaliation.  185 

this  instance,  was  stimulated  by  the  spirit  of  justice ; 
for  an  injured  man  is  not  precluded  from  entertaining 
a  public  sense  of  justice  in  his  indignation  at  that 
outrage  which  has  affected  himself.     And  therefore 
this  rule  of  retaliation  in  the  Mosaic  Law  is  not  to  be 
interpreted  as  simply  permissory  ;  it  has  the  nature  of 
a  precept  and  an  injunction ;  a  command  to  the  persons 
to  whom  it  was  given  to  exert  the  right  of  punishing 
those  who  had  wantonly  harmed  them,  and  making 
them  smart  for  their  insolence  and  brutality.     It  is  a 
mistake  to  suppose  that  the  only  treatment  which 
men  want  under  open  injuries,  is  checking  and  hold- 
ing back  from  an  excess  of  retaliation ;  undoubtedly, 
regarding  man  under  one  aspect  it  is ;  but  there  is  a 
side  of  man's  nature  on  which  he  is  just  as  much  a 
coward  as  he  is  a  thirster  for  revenge  on  the  other. 
Let  us  place  ourselves  in  the  age.     There  is,  observable 
in  many,  a  hanging  back  from  doing  justice  evefi  to 
themselves,    under    such    circumstances  ;    they    are 
afraid   of   their    injurer,  and   think  that    they   may 
perhaps  get  yet  worse  from  him  than  they  have  got ; 
they  see  in  his  punishment  only  an  incentive  to  an- 
other outrage,  and  conclude  that  the  matter  may  as 
well  rest  where  it  is.     A  violent  man  who  makes 
himself  an  object  of  terror  in  his  neighbourhood,  thus 
gains  an  impunity  for  his  acts, — not  from  the  for- 
bearance but  from  the  timidity  of  his  victims.     The 
precept  in  the  Mosaic  Law  is  opposed  to  this  want  of 
courage,  and  urges  retaliation  upon  men  as  a  duty 
due  to  justice.     It  imposes  conditions  indeed  upon 
retaliation ;  and  whereas  the  injured  person  is  inclined, 


1 86  The  Law  of  Retaliation. 

when  lie  once  begins  the  work  of  vengeance,  to  carry 
it  on  beyond  all  bounds,  and  to  overstep  altogether 
the  measure  of  the  original  injury,  the  law  confines 
him  to  an  equal  harm.1  Still  the  law  enjoins  retalia- 

1  The  law  of  retaliation,  which  is  to  be  found  in  the  Hindu  code,  is 
framed  in  an  entirely  different  spirit  from  that  of  Scripture.  The  idea 
of  justice,  which  is  an  essential  part  of  the  Jewish  law,  is  violated  in 
the  Hindu,  as  will  be  seen  from  the  following  extract  from  Professor 
Monier  Williams'  Indian  Wisdom  :  — "  The  three  most  conspicuous 
features  of  his  (Manu's)  penal  laws  are  exactly  those  which  mark  the 
earliest  forms  of  criminal  legislation, — viz.,  severity,  inconsistency,  and 
a  belief  in  the  supposed  justice  of  the  lex  talionis,  the  latter  leading  to 
punishments  which,  in  later  times,  would  be  considered  unjustifiably 
disproportionate  to  the  offences  committed,  and  sometimes  barbarously 
cruel.  Thus  : — 

"With  whatever  member  of  the  body  a  low-born  man  may  injure  a 
superior,  that  very  member  of  his  must  be  mutilated. 

"  A  once-born  man  insulting  twice-born  men  with  abusive  language  must 
have  his  tongue  cut  out. 

"  Should  he  mention  their  name  and  caste  with  insulting  expressions  (as 
1  Hallo  !  there,  Yaj  iia  datta ' — vilest  of  Brahmans),  a  red-hot  iron  spike,  ten 
fingers  long,  is  to  be  thrust  into  his  mouth. 

"Should  he,  through  arrogance,  attempt  to  instruct  a  Brahman  in  his 
duty  (saying,  You  ought  to  do  so  and  so),  the  king  is  to  have  boiling  oil 
poured  into  his  mouth  and  ears. 

"Thieves  are  to  have  their  hands  cut  off,  and  then  to  be  impaled  on  a 
sharp  stake. 

"  A  goldsmith  detected  in  committing  frauds  is  to  have  his  body  cut  in 
pieces  with  a  razor. 

"  It  will  be  observed  that  a  graduated  scale  is  prescribed,  according 
to  the  rank  of  the  offender,  and  the  class  to  which  he  belongs. 
Thus  : — 

"  A  king  must  never  kill  a  Brahman,  though  he  may  be  found  guilty  of  all 
possible  crimes ;  let  him  expel  him  from  the  kingdom  unharmed  in  body,  and 
intact  in  all  his  property.  There  is  no  greater  injustice  on  earth  than  the 
killing  of  a  Brahman.  The  king  therefore  must  not  harbour  a  thought  about 
putting  him  to  death. 

"  A  Kshatriya  insulting  a  Brahman  must  be  fined  one  hundred  panas  ;  a 
Vaisya  doing  the  same  must  pay  one  hundred  and  fifty  or  two  hundred 
panas  ;  a  Sudra  doing  the  same  must  receive  corporal  punishment." — P.  273. 


The  Law  of  Retaliation.  187 

tion,  and  does  not  only  permit  it.  "  Thine  eye  shall 
not  pity ;  but  life  shall  go  for  life,  eye  for  eye,  tooth 
for  tooth,  hand  for  hand,  foot  for  foot." 1  And  our 
Lord  mentions  retaliation  among  the  injunctions  of 
the  Law,  for  He  is  speaking  throughout  this  chapter 
—the  fifth  of  St.  Matthew — of  rules  and  precepts, 
and  not  permissions.  The  law  of  retaliation  was 
indeed  a  public  law;  and  so  far  as  the  judge  took 
the  vengeance  out  of  the  hands  of  the  individual, 
so  far  it  became  a  judicial  punishment  simply;  and 
the  law  alone  is  responsive  for  the  penalty  and 
not  the  individual.  "  But  that  such  was  the  public 
enactment  of  the  Mosaic  Law,"  says  Dean  Alford, 
"  implied  a  private  spirit  of  retaliation,  which  should 
seek  such  redress*;  for  the  example  (eye  for  eye,  etc.) 
evidently  refers  to  private  as  well  as  public  retribu- 
tion."2 But  this  very  private  spirit  of  retaliation 
was  at  the  same  time  enjoined  in  the  Law,  and  not 
only  permitted ;  was  enjoined  as  being  an  imperfect 
form  of  proper  retribution  and  justice. 

The  demand,  however,  of  an  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a 
tooth  for  a  tooth,  was  the  fruit  of  a  very  imperfect 
moral  standard,  and  our  Lord  passes  sentence  on  it 
accordingly,  as  a  rule  made  obsolete  by  the  rise  of  a 
higher  law ;  and  therefore  this  is  an  instance  in  which 
we  see  the  Almighty,  in  the  Mosaic  Law,  not  only 
allowing  but  enjoining  and  commending  an  act 
of  imperfect  morality.  The  Divine  Legislator  takes 
up  the  idea  of  justice  which  belongs  to  the  age, 
and  sustains  it  in  authority,  i.e.,  lays  it  down  as  a 

1  Dent.  xix.  21.  2  Greek  Test.,  note  on  Matt.  v. 


1 88  The  Law  of  Retaliation. 

precept,  until  the  mind  of  the  people  is  equal  to  a 
higher  law. 

2.  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour,  and  hate  thine 
enemy.  The  latter  part  of  this  precept — Thou  shalt 
hate  thine  enemy — nowhere  occurs  in  so  many  words 
in  the  Mosaic  Law ;  the  whole  precept,  however,  as  it 
stands,  undoubtedly  represents,  and  is  a  summary  of, 
the  sense  of  the  Law ;  nor  is  there  any  occasion,  as 
some  commentators  do,  to  distinguish  the  object  of 
our  Lord's  prefix — "  Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been 
said," — as  it  applies  to  the  first  part  of  this  precept, 
and  as  it  applies  to  the  second ;  to  refer  it  to  the  Law 
in  the  case  of  "  Love  thy  neighbour,"  and  to  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  scribes  in  the  case  of  "  Hate  thine  enemy." 
All  the  other  precepts  which  our  Lord  takes  as  in- 
stances of  an  inferior  morality  which  the  Gospel  puts 
aside,  are  precepts  out  of  the  law,  and  there  is  no 
reason  to  distinguish  this  particular  one  from  the  rest 
with  respect  to  its  source.  "Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbour,  and  hate  thine  enemy,"  is  the  same  form  of 
expression  as  "  Ye  shall  be  perfect." 

This  precept  applies,  in  the  first  place,  to  the  neigh- 
bour and  the  enemy  in  a  public  and  national  sense  ; 
the  neighbour  was  the  Israelite,  the  enemy  was  he  who 
was  not  the  Israelite, — the  Moabite,  the  Edomite,  the 
Ammonite,  the  Philistine.1  This  is  a  definition  of  a 
neighbour  and  an  enemy  which  belongs  especially  to 
an  early  stage  of  society,  before  smaller  nations  and 
tribes  were  collected  under  large  monarchies,  and  the 
different  materials  welded  together  by  a  central  power, 

1  Ps.  Ixxxiii.  6,  7,  9,  10. 


The  Law  of  Retaliation.  189 

and   penetrated  by  the  force   of  a   higher   common 
sovereignty,  bringing  them  into  a  political  union  under 
one  head.     The  precept  implies  a  primitive  state  of 
mutual  animosity,  and  frequent  wars ;  the  necessary 
accompaniment  of  the  fact  that  the  nations  were  close 
to  one  another,   and  yet  two ;  and  in  this  state  of 
things  the  Israelites  are  to  love  Israelites,  and  to  hate 
Moabites,    Edomites,    Ammonites,    and    Philistines. 
Simply  looking  upon  this  precept,  then,  in  its  working 
upon  national  feeling,  we  see  that  it  is  addressed  to  an 
early  age  of  the  world;  but  that,  together  with  the 
accommodation  which  there  is  in  it  to  the  division  of 
that  age,  it  also  tends  to  strengthen  and  compact  the 
union  of  that  age.     In  that  early  stage  of  human  pro- 
gress, what  there  was  of  union  in  different  quarters 
was  powerfully  developed  and  built  up  by  contrast — 
the  particular  state  or  nation  being  made  to  feel  unity 
by  the  opposition  of  separation ;  its  own  concord  by 
the  mark  of  its  division  from  those  around  it.     This 
keen  sensation  of  disunion  with  others  not  only  pre- 
vented its  own  union  from  splitting  up,  but  actually 
promoted  and  increased  it ;  the  inward  forces  of  the 
state  were  the  more  amalgamated  and  gathered  up, 
and  all  its  elements  brought  into  closer  agreement. 
In  a  word,  this  precept  was,  in  a  national  sense,  the 
inculcation  of  an  esprit  de  corps,  which  was  the  very 
bond  of  and  incentive  to  union  in  the  early  ages,  and 
that  upon  which  the  world  depended  for  its  advance 
to  more  regular  and  wider  grounds  of  union.     "We  see 
now  traces  of  the  same  character  in  the  social  sphere, 
in  those  who  combine  the  virtues  and  the  defects  of 


The  Law  of  Retaliation. 

earlier  times,  and  are  the  most  generous  friends,  and 
at  the  same  time,  as  we  say,  good  haters.  This  pre- 
cept was  therefore  an  accommodation  to  an  imperfect 
morality.  Taking  the  early  esprit  de  corps  as  a  whole, 
with  its  unity  and  its  division,  it  engendered  a  prin- 
cipal of  national  union, — the  best  of  which  the  age  was 
capable.  And  when  we  add  that  to  the  Jew  the 
foreigner  was  also  a  heathen  and  a  stranger  to  the 
Covenant,  the  precept  assumes  not  a  national  but  a 
religious  character,  and  becomes  a  direction  to  the 
people,  in  the  only  popular  form  which  the  spirit  of 
the  age  allowed,  to  stand  by  their  religion,  and  keep 
up  the  strong  sense  of  their  superiority  as  being  God's 
people;  and  of  the  hatefulness  of  the  religion  of  the 
heathen.  The  Jew  undoubtedly  exceeded  the  force  of 
the  precept  in  the  actual  relation  in  which  he  put  him- 
self toward  the  rest  of  mankind,  and  in  the  temper 
which  he  brought  himself  to — "  in  that  hatred  of  the 
human  race,  and  enmity  to  all  the  rest  of  the  world," 
which  Tacitus,  in  the  well-known  passage  notices,  and 
which  he  describes  the  Jews  as  combining  "  with  com- 
passion toward  each  other."  1  There  was  an  obstinate 
virulence  and  morbid  moroseness  in  the  actual  temper 
of  the  Jews,  contracted  by  habit  and  education,  and 
the  artificial  creation  of  their  schools,  for  which  the 
precept  is  not  responsible;  but  the  precept  itself 
still  inculcated  that  generous  form  of  enmity  to  out- 
siders which  was  the  natural  accompaniment  in  early 
times  of  love  of  your  own  body. 

1  "  Apud  ipsos  fides  obstinata  misericordia  in  promptu  sed  adversus 
omnes  alios  hostile  odium." — Tac.  Hist.  v.  5,  2. 


The  Law  of  Retaliation.  191 

But  the  enemy  is  not  always  in  Scripture  a 
foreigner,  a  heathen,  or  one  out  of  the  Covenant. 
Any  one  who  reads  Scripture  will  be  struck  with  the 
definite  mention  of  the  enemy  as  an  individual. 
Your  enemy  is  what  may  be  called  a  character  in 
Scripture ;  he  has  a  regular  place ;  there  are  exhorta- 
tions given  respecting  him,  and  he  is  a  known  subject 
of  treatment.  He  is  a  persecutor,  a  foe  to  religion ; 
but  a  personal  enemy  too,  who  seeks  after  your  soul 
to  destroy  it ;  he  is  full  of  cunning,  deceit,  and  fraud ; 
under  his  tongue  is  ungodliness  and  vanity  ;  he  is  in- 
spired with  hatred,  and  cunning,  and  these  are  directed 
against  a  personal  object.  Saul  was  the  enemy  of 
David,  but  so  far  from  being  a  foreigner  and  a 
heathen,  he  was  a  Jewish  king,  and  his  own  father- 
in-law.  Doeg  and  Ahithophel,  against  whom  David 
utters  strong  imprecations  in  the  Psalms,  were  per- 
sonal enemies  of  the  deepest  type ;  wily  and  malignant 
plotters,  bent  on  undermining  David  in  the  kingdom, 
and  seeking  his  life.  It  is  impossible  that  a  mere 
foreigner  or  heathen,  as  such,  should  be  the  object 
of  the  feelings  sometimes  described  in  the  Old 
Testament  toward  an  "  enemy ; "  after  all,  foreigners 
and  heathen,  as  such,  are  not  real  persons  at  all ;  they 
are  mere  representative  persons,  mere  abstractions; 
they  must  be  real  persons,  who  are  hated  in  that  sense 
in  which  hatred  of  an  enemy  is  sometimes  understood 
and  delineated  in  Scripture.1 

1  The  Law  is  pervaded  by  great  rules  and  precepts,  which  form  its 
leading  principles.  Ketaliation  is  one  leading  view  of  the  Law  ;  that 
pain  and  adversity  are  the  test  of  the  Divine  displeasure,  prosperity  and 


192  The  Law  of  Retaliation. 

It  must  be  observed  indeed  that  the  "  enemy " 
continues  to  have  his  place  in  the  Gospel;  though 
a  distinct  set  of  maxims  and  a  different  mode  of 
treatment  are  applied  to  him.  He  is  a  recognised 
person,  however,  there ;  and  even  the  substitution 
of  "  love "  for  "  hatred "  toward  him,  still  treats 
him  as  an  existing  personage,  and  a  definite  per- 
sonage, who  is  known  to  another  and  whom  his 
object  is  conscious  of.  This  personage,  under  a  later 
system,  does  not  exert  the  violence  and  the  force 
which  he  did  in  the  Jewish ;  he  does  not  seek  a  man's 
life.  If  his  character  is  to  be  summarily  described,  he 
is  a  determined  ill-wisher  ;  his  heart  is  radically 
affected  hostilely  toward  another;  the  whole  spring 
of  his  wishes  is  turned  against  him ;  he  wishes  him 
ill-success,  failure,  disappointment.  It  is  this  evil- 
wishing  which  constitutes  mainly  an  enemy ;  of  course 
he  may  do  actual  harm  ;  but  an  habitual  evil  wish  is 
in  itself  an  injury  to  another, — an  injury  to  his  peace 
which  he  has  to  surmount.  Malice,  however,  does  not 
stand  alone  in  a  man.  It  produces  meanness.  A  man 

happiness  the  mark  of  God's  good  will  is  another  leading  view.  But 
this  is  compatible  with  single  texts  and  isolated  precepts  on  a  different 
principle  ;  and  Scripture,  when  it  gives  the  main  place  in  it  to  one 
rule,  may  occasionally  anticipate  the  higher  Gospel  standard.  Thus, 
the  Law  reveals  the  rule  of  justice  as  one  of  retaliation ;  and  at  the 
same  time  Job  says  (chap.  xxxi.  29),—"  If  I  rejoiced  at  the  destruc- 
tion of  him  that  hated  me,  or  lifted  up  myself  when  evil  found  him  : 
neither  have  I  suffered  my  mouth  to  sin  by  wishing  a  curse  to  his 
soul." 

Thus,  the  Law  reveals  the  rule  of  God's  infliction  of  pain  or  punish- 
ment as  proceeding  from  His  anger,  and  the  prosperity  of  man  as  being 
the  expression  of  His  love  ;  and  at  the  same  time  Scripture  says  (Prov., 
iii.  12),  "  For  whom  the  Lord  loveth  He  correcteth." 


The  L  aw  of  Retaliation.  193 

finds  he  cannot  gratify  it  by  open  ways,  and  he  is 
forced  upon  underhand  and  secret  ones.  Thus  he 
slides  in  part  into  the  character  of  the  Jewish  "  enemy/' 
though  a  milder  form  of  the  character.  The  Gospel, 
I  say,  recognises  an  habitual  enmity,  of  which  the 
object  is  an  individual.  One  would  suppose,  from 
the  way  in  which  some  men  talk,  that  there  were  no 
such  thing  now  as  hating  persons,  or  that  it  were  con- 
fined to  a  rude  class  in  society ;  that  it  was  a  barbarous 
and  obsolete  temper;  and  that  now  only  principles 
were  hated,  and  persons  only  in  their  abstract  character 
as  representing  sets  of  principles.  There  could  not  be 
a  greater  mistake,  and  the  Gospel  takes  notice  of  the 
rude  fact  of  personal  enmity  as  a  real  thing ;  i.e.,  of  a 
state  of  feeling  in  a  man  towards  another,  which  springs 
in  him,  in  the  first  instance,  toward  the  person.  The 
individual  is  the  goal  and  terminus  of  the  feeling. 
For  this  there  are  selfish,  or  proud,  or  jealous  reasons ; 
but  it  is  often  very  mysterious  how  this  feeling  toward 
another  arises.  "We  talk  of  animal  nature  in  respect 
of  sensuality,  but  it  would  almost  seem  as  if  there  were 
such  a  thing  as  animal  nature  in  respect  of  irrational 
causeless  malignity ;  a  hostile  spirit  to  this  or  that 
person,  which  is  not  accounted  for  in  any  cause  which 
appeals  to  a  strictly  rational  nature ;  and,  however 
concealed  under  the  usual  refinements  of  civilisation, 
that  such  a  state  of  mind  were  a  shooting  up  of  an 
old  low  and  wild  instinct  not  amenable  to  reason; 
— an  irrational  part  of  the  man  which  acts  antago- 
nistically, and  is  excited  without  anything  properly 
to  account  for  it ;  so  much  does  the  effect  outrun  any 


194  The  Law  of  Retaliation. 

intelligible  motive  which  the  facts  of  the  case  can 
supply.  Among  schoolboys,  whose  natures  act  with  a 
rough  openness,  an  animal  propensity  to  hatred  may 
be  observed,  and  one  boy  singles  out  another  for  per- 
sistent bullying  without  any  assignable  cause.  Among 
men  such  a  source  of  enmity  will  be  disguised,  but  it 
exists  in  their  case,  and  they  too  act  from  subtle  and 
secret  irrational  magnetism  of  enmity  toward  particular 
persons,  though  this  of  course  does  not  excuse  it.  For 
persons  to  fall  back  upon  a  lower  and  base  nature,  is  a 
vileness;  reason  should  raise  them  above  it.  True 
reason  is  loving.  It  says  to  itself,  Why  should  I  hate 
this  man  ?  what  reason  is  there  ?  True  reason  is  kind, 
humane ;  but  there  is  a  carnal  abyss  in  man  which  is 
not  under  law,  out  of  which  the  hostile  mind  comes, 
that,  if  it  have  not  got  an  object,  makes  one.  It  is 
quite  mysterious,  sometimes,  the  way  in  which  an 
"  enemy  "  rises  up  in  a  circle ;  the  first  overt  sign  is 
far  from  the  first  commencement  of  him  ;  he  has  had 
a  secret  growth  before.  Sometimes  the  subtlest  and 
keenest  form  of  enmity  springs  out  of  a  previous  friend- 
ship, which  only  disclosed  and  extracted  the  con- 
trarieties in  the  persons'  characters  too  accurately,  and 
made  them  know  each  other  too  well. 

But,  however  we  may  explain  him,  an  enemy  is  a 
grave  thing ; — some  one  who  has  singled  another  out 
for  evil  wishes;  Scripture  speaks  of  him  therefore 
always  with  gravity,  as  if  it  were  a  serious  thought 
to  any  one;  while  the  "enemy"  is  made  to  stand 
out  a  defined  personage,  and  Scripture  lays  its 
finger  on  him.  We  value  our  friends'  good  wishes, 


The  Law  of  Retaliation.  195 

indeed,  more  than  anything  they  really  do  for  us ; 
they  are  the  most  precious  part  of  them;  the  ill- 
wisher,  therefore,  is  the  most  opposite  to  nature,  and 
stands  out  as  an  evil  prodigy.  He  does  in  substance 
what  the  "enemy"  in  Scripture  does,  who  is  repre- 
sented as  cursing;  for  cursing  is  in  substance  evil- 
wishing,  and  it  is,  as  such,  invested  with  so  dark  a 
character  in  Scripture.  There  is,  indeed,  if  one  thinks 
of  it,  something  dreadful  in  people  wishing,  keenly,  as 
a  punishment,  out  of  malice  to  another,  what  in  the 
Divine  dispensation  of  chastenings  is  designed  as  his 
blessing.  Nor  is  there  anything  so  immovable,  after 
it  has  once  got  a  certain  hold  of  the  mind,  as  a  personal 
enmity ;  nothing  lessens  it ;  the  person  himself  who 
is  the  object  of  it  may  change  ever  so  much,  it  makes 
no  difference ;  the  feeling  has  once  attached  itself  to 
him — that  person — and  there  it  clings.  There  is  an 
obstinate  depreciation  which  is  just  the  same.  Nor 
do  any  outward  civilities  and  forms  of  kindness  on 
the  part  of  the  entertainer  of  the  feeling  himself  at  all 
affect  it ;  it  goes  untouched  through  them  all.  We 
naturally  at  first  connect  contingency  with  persons, 
and  stability  with  principles ;  yet  a  man  will  change 
what  he  calls  his  principles  half  a  dozen  times  in  his 
life ;  yet  hardly  ever  change  a  personal  enmity.  His 
lower  nature  is  more  fixed  than  his  higher  intellectual 
nature. 

A  man's  enemy  was  all  this  under  the  old  law,  but 
he  was  more,  in  proportion  to  the  less  restraint  which 
a  less  spiritual  system  threw  upon  him.  Under  the 
Gospel,  as  the  highest  spiritual  law,  the  enemy  can 


196  The  Law  of  Retaliation. 

not  profess  Ms  enmity,  and  so  is  compelled  to  hide  it 
in  the  corner  of  his  heart,  where  it  takes  the  form  of  ill 
wishes,  and  permanent  ill  wishes ;  but  still  is  obliged, 
by  the  spiritual  nature  of  the  law  which  the  man  pro- 
fesses, to  abstain  from  active  demonstration.  This  is 
indeed  often  a  worse  state  of  the  individual  man  than 
his  state  under  the  Law ;  because  it  is  of  the  nature  of 
hatred,  as  of  other  evil,  to  become  intenser  under  con- 
cealment ;  and  when  a  man  is  forced  by  the  height  of 
the  system  he  outwardly  owns  to  fall  back  upon 
hypocrisy,  he  not  only  acts  as  a  hypocrite  in  conceal- 
ing his  bad  state  of  mind,  but  his  state  of  mind  be- 
comes worse  by  being  concealed.  The  passion  of  enmity 
becomes  deeper  and  stronger.  And  doubtless  this 
peculiar  result  of  Christianity,  where  it  drives  evil 
deeper  into  a  man's  heart  instead  of  freeing  him  from 
the  yoke,  and  roots  it  instead  of  extracting,  is  antici- 
pated in  that  remarkable  text,  where  the  evil  spirit  is 
described  as  restored  in  all  the  greater  power  after  his 
downfall — "  Then  he  saith,  I  will  return  into  my  house 
from  whence  I  came  out ;  and  when  he  is  come,  he 
findeth  it  empty,  swept,  and  garnished.  Then  goeth 
he,  and  taketh  with  himself  seven  other  spirits  more 
wicked  than  himself,  and  they  enter  in  and  dwell 
there :  and  the  last  state  of  that  man  is  worse  than 
the  first"  (Matt.  xii.  44).  But  under  the  old  law  a 
man's  enemy  of  course  stood  in  more  than  the  posi- 
tion of  an  ill-wisher  to  him ;  he  was  emphatically  a 
dangerous  man,  and  was  ready  any  day  to  do  him 
real  mischief,  and  indeed  he  might  even  take  away 
his  life. 


The  Law  of  Retaliation.  197 

With  respect,  then,  to  this  more  private  type 
of  enemy,  the  rule  of  the  old  law — Thou  shalt  love 
thy  neighbour,  and  hate  thine  enemy — was  conceived 
in  the  general  spirit  of  the  law  of  retaliation ;  and 
the  "enemy"  came  under  the  action  of  that  general 
law ;  he  was  only  an  habitual  foe,  instead  of  one  for 
the  occasion  :  and  the  precept  to  hate  your  enemy, 
was,  like  that  of  retaliation,  in  its  spirit  judicial ;  though 
it  aimed  at  justice  through  a  personal  medium,  i.e., 
through  the  redress  of  your  own  wrongs.  It  was  the 
justice  of  an  earlier  age  of  society,  when  the  scope 
of  the  individual  and  that  of  the  state  were  not  so 
clearly  distinguished ;  and  a  high  form  of  personal 
vengeance  mingled  with  the  principle  of  public  justice 
so  intimately,  that  they  could  not  be  wholly  sepa- 
rated;— for  it  must  be  always  remembered  that  the 
precept  assumes  that  the  enemy  is  in  the  wrong  and 
that  you  are  in  the  right.  To  a  certain  extent,  then, 
it  was  right  that  these  bad  natures  that  infested 
society,  and,  by  fastening  upon  individuals  who  lived 
under  their  plots  and  menaces,  were  really  the  foes 
of  the  community,  should  be  met  by  the  courage  of 
those  whom  they  harassed  and  troubled;  and  not 
only  a  permission  but  a  command  to  the  sufferer  to 
retaliate  upon  them  was  wanted.  Because,  as  we 
have  said,  it  is  by  no  means  true  to  say  universally 
that  men  did  not  want  a  command  to  defend  them- 
selves, but  would  do  it  unprompted;  and  that  only 
a  check  upon  retribution  was  needed.  Many  of  the 
quieter  sort,  who  stood  in  fear  of  bold  and  unscrupu- 
lous men,  might  shrink  from  provoking  even  by  just 


198  The  Law  of  Retaliation. 

acts  of  retaliation  further  animosity,  and  would  re- 
quire an  injunction  to  retaliate,  rather  than  a  restraint 
upon  their  retribution.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
evident  that  a  precept  which  did  not  accurately  dis- 
tinguish between  a  public  enemy  and  a  private,  and 
allowed  resentment  to  act  only  upon  a  vague,  though 
honest  impression  of  its  own  right  and  justice,  was 
a  precept  of  imperfect  morality ;  and  such  retaliation 
was  constantly  exposed  to  error,  passion,  and  excess. 
The  Divine  Legislator  therefore  in  this  instance  took 
up  the  justice  of  the  age,  that  which  was  the  highest 
and  most  genuine  and  effective  form  of  it  at  the  time ; 
and  inserted  it  as  a  rule  and  precept  in  His  own  code 
for  the  Jewish  nation. 

The  precept,  however,  Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbour,  and  hate  thine  enemy,  had  a  still  deeper 
signification,  and  involved  a  more  inward  and  sacred 
class  of  feelings,  when  the  "  enemy "  was  specially 
identified  with  the  enemy  of  God — a  man  opposed  to 
the  spread  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  upon  earth.  In 
the  case  of  David,  inasmuch  as  his  public  and  personal 
foes  are  the  same  men ;  and  those  who  wish  him  ill 
also  wish  ill  to  Zion,  and  are  set  against  the  establish- 
ment of  a  religious  kingdom  of  Israel,  his  personal 
enemies  are  thus  identified  with  God's  enemies  ;  and 
this  combination  produces  the  powerful  and  awful 
damnatory  expressions  which  we  meet  with  in  the 
Psalms.  The  precept,  when  its  terms  are  taken  with 
this  religious  light  thrown  upon  them,  is  simply  to 
say — Thou  shalt  love  the  good  and  hate  the  bad. 
But  such  a  precept,  though  it  bears  a  good  Gospel 


The  Law  of  Retaliation.  199 

sense,  was  not  understood  exactly  in  the  same  way 
under  the  Law,  in  which  it  is  under  the  Gospel.  Under 
the  old  dispensation,  when  a  saint  of  God  obeyed  this 
command,  and  hated  his  enemy  in  the  sense  of  the 
enemy  of  God, — the  bad  man  who  has  taken  his  side 
against  God's  kingdom, — he  understood  that  injunction 
in  the  sense  of  wishing  his  enemy  from  the  very  depth 
of  his  heart  the  deprivation  of  all  worldly  good.  The 
old  Law  was  a  system  of  temporal  rewards  and  punish- 
ments. Under  it,  therefore,  the  sunshine  of  prosperity 
was  identified  with  God's  favour ;  and  it  was  an  in- 
congruity and  an  impiety,  a  frightful  reversal  of  rule 
and  order, — though  it  could  not  be  denied  that  it  did 
occasionally  happen, — that  the  wicked  should  enjoy 
the  light  of  God's  countenance,  as  this  life's  happi- 
ness seemed  to  be.  It  was  confusion  ;  it  was  a  dread- 
ful contradiction  and  discord.  The  saint  of  the  old 
Law,  therefore,  cursed  the  enemy  of  God ;  and  that 
was  the  way  in  which  David  understood  and  acted  on 
the  precept  to  hate  his  enemy.  For  the  righteous, 
then,  was  sprung  up  a  light,  a  joyful  gladness  for 
such  as  were  true-hearted  ;  they  ate,  and  were  satis- 
fied ;  they  sang  praises  unto  the  Lord,  and  lacked 
nothing.  But  as  to  the  enemy  of  God,  David  prayed 
chat  he  might  wander  upon  the  face  of  the  earth  an 
outlaw  and  an  outcast.  He  called  down  upon  him 
all  the  pains,  and  every  ignominy,  that  can  afflict  a 
man.  Let  cursing  happen  unto  him,  let  blessing  be 
far  from  him ;  may  he  be  condemned  in  the  court,  and 
may  Satan  be  his  judge  ;  may  he  lose  all  that  he  has, 
his  prayer  be  rejected,  the  extortioner  grind  him,  and 


2OO  The  Law  of  Retaliation. 

the  stranger  supplant  him ;  let  misery  be  unto  him 
as  the  cloak  that  he  hath  upon  him,  and  as  the  girdle 
that  he  is  girded  withal ;  let  his  life  be  cut  short,  and 
his  name  perish.  The  imprecation  extended  to  the 
posterity, — that  they  should  be  vagabonds  and  beggars, 
desolate,  homeless,  and  fatherless,  and  no  man  even 
to  pity  them.  Hatred  of  the  enemy  of  God  thus 
filled  the  full  and  terrible  measure  of  the  old  Law ;  it 
was  conceived  in  the  spirit  of  the  anomalous  and 
romantic  justice  of  the  older  religious  type,  which 
combined  temporal  punishment  of  sin  with  the  in- 
clusion of  the  children  in  the  guilt  of  sin  ;  which 
overwhelmed  the  whole  family  in  one  collective 
destruction  with  its  head ;  and  in  the  sentence  upon 
crime  did  not  distinguish  personality.  But  the  new 
code  changed  all.  Christian  hatred  of  the  enemy  of 
God  both  discarded  the  test  of  temporal  punishment, 
and  distinguished  personality.  The  bad  man  might 
be  prosperous  in  this  world,  and  his  children  were  not 
involved  in  his  guilt.  He  only  was  guilty  and  de- 
served punishment ;  and  that  punishment  was  the  act 
of  God's  future  justice,  and  belonged  to  the  eternal 
world.  The  Christian  could  not  pray  for  his  tem- 
poral misfortune  and  misery. 


LECTURE  IX. 

RETALIATION  :    LAW  OF  GOEL. 

TN  treating  the  law  of  retaliation  I  have  reserved  for 
separate  consideration  the  case  of  the  Avenger  of 
Blood,  under  the  Law  of  Goel,  as  the  most  conspicuous 
example  of  the  retaliation  enjoined  in  the  Mosaic  code. 
Here  is  an  instance  of  an  unwritten  law  of  the  East 
which  was  incorporated  in  the  Mosaic  dispensation : — 
as  the  new  conditions  which  were  annexed  to  it,  and 
by  which  it  was  partially  modified,  show.  The  act  of 
the  Goel  (Note  8),  therefore,  was  in  its  radical  motive 
an  act  of  genuine  and  serious  justice,  it  was  an  act  of 
high  religious  retribution,  and  piety  to  the  dead ;  it 
was  therefore  at  the  root  a  moral  act ;  at  the  same  time 
it  was  an  act  of  imperfect  morality,  because  this  un- 
written law  plainly  obliged  the  avenger  of  blood  to 
pursue  and  kill  without  full  knowledge  of  the  facts  of 
the  case ;  which  in  many  cases,  in  the  absence  of  all 
public  forms  of  justice  and  regular  courts,  he  could 
not  possibly  learn.  "  No  such  investigation  is  ever 
thought  of  by  the  blood-avenger,"  says  Michaelis,1 
"  before  he  sets  out  on  his  pursuit,  nor  has  he  indeed 
any  opportunity  of  making  it,  because  those  who  are 
suspected  will  not  present  themselves  before  his  tribunal 

1  Commentaries  on  the  Laws  of  Moses,  Book  iii.  Art.  133. 


2O2  Retaliation  :  Law  of  Goel. 

to  abide  a  trial  of  their  guilt  or  innocence.  He  must 
therefore  follow  mere  report,  or  what  those  to  whom 
he  gives  credit  tell  him  ;  and  this,  too,  he  does  under 
the  influence  of  passion/'  So  very  loose,  so  indis- 
criminating,  and  so  wild,  was  the  justice  of  the  law  of 
Goel.  If  a  man  killed  another  by  accident,  or  if  he 
killed  him  even  in  self-defence,  the  law  allowed  for 
neither  of  these  reasons  for  the  homicide  ;  but  gave  the 
blood-avenger  the  full  right  to  his  life,  could  he  dis- 
cover and  overtake  him,  the  same  that  he  would  have 
had  to  that  of  a  deliberate  murderer  : — a  right  which 
he  was  obliged  to  exercise  by  the  law  of  Goel  itself, 
and  by  the  popular  code  of  honour  which  enforced 
the  law ;  which  was  so  stringent  and  imperious  that 
no  man  could  leave  his  relation  unavenged  without 
indelible  disgrace. 

Such  being  the  rule  of  Goel,  this  consuetudinal  law 
or  command  was  adopted  by  the  Divine  Lawgiver  at 
the  institution  of  the  Mosaic  code,  and  incorporated 
into  the  judicial  or  criminal  law  of  the  Jewish  nation. 
The  command  of  old  legal  custom  was  continued  and 
maintained  by  the  sanction  of  the  Mosaic  Law ;  and 
the  people  of  God  in  obeying  the  rule  of  Goel  obeyed  a 
rule  which  they  received  from  the  same  authority  from 
which  they  received  the  rest  of  their  law ; — an  autho- 
rity, indeed,  which  had  not  founded  the  rule,  but  had, 
upon  finding  it,  adopted  it.  Those  who  killed  another 
either  accidentally  or  in  self-defence,  had  indeed  a 
right  to  the  permanent  shelter  of  the  cities  of  refuge, 
to  which  the  wilful  murderer  had  not ;  but  up  to  the 
gates  of  the  legal  sanctuary  the  avenger  had  full 


Retaliation :  Law  of  Goel.  203 

rights  under  the  Jewish  law  over  both, — both  wilful 
murderer  and  killer  by  accident — and  he  was  as  much 
bound  to  claim  those  rights,  within  the  limits  to  which 
they  were  subjected  under  a  restrained  law  of  Goel, 
as  he  would  have  been  to  exercise  them  under  an 
unrestricted  law.  A  check  was  placed  by  Moses 
upon  the  operation  of  the  old  consuetudinary  law ;  but 
before  it  reached  that  check  the  law  was  as  imperative 
as  ever,  and  the  avenger  of  blood  was  under  a  full 
command  to  pursue  the  manslayer,  and  if  he  caught 
him  to  take  his  life.  There  was  nothing  optional  in 
the  course  marked  out  for  the  avenger  of  blood  under 
the  Jewish  Law ;  the  pursuit,  with  its  issue,  should  it 
be  fatal  or  not,  was  prescribed  and  enjoined  upon 
him ;  and  the  Mosaic  Law  in  incorporating  the  law  of 
Goel  deprived  it  of  none  of  its  stringency  within  the 
limits  within  which  it  acted.  To  have  inserted  the 
rule  of  Goel  as  an  optional  one  indeed  in  the  Mosaic 
code, — which  people  might  observe  if  they  pleased, 
but  which  was  not  obligatory  upon  them, — would 
be  an  impossible  step  for  us  to  suppose  the  Divine 
Lawgiver  to  have  taken;  its  very  incorporation 
in  the  Jewish  Law  is  a  guarantee  for  the  sense  in 
which  it  is  incorporated,  viz.  not  as  a  permission,  but 
as  a  command.  What  it  was  lawful  for  the  avenger 
of  blood  to  do,  that  he  must  do.  The  law  of  Goel, 
then,  as  adopted  into  the  Mosaic  Law,  is  an  instance 
of  a  Divine  command  enjoining  and  enforcing  acts  of 
imperfect  justice  and  morality,  in  those  early  times, 
as  distinguished  from  merely  permitting  them  or  con- 
niving at  them.  It  was  an  instance  in  which  God 


204  Retaliation  :  Law  of  Goel. 

acted  through  the  medium  of  the  moral  standard  of 
the  age,  gave  commands  accommodated  to  that 
medium,  and  imposed  as  obligatory  upon  people 
proceedings  characterised  by  that  imperfect  morality. 
Many  critics  on  the  Old  Testament  morality  would 
indeed  set  down  the  law  of  Goel  as  almost  entirely  in- 
spired by  bloodthirsty  vengeance ;  and  they  have  a 
notion  of  the  voracious  relish  of  revenge  as  being  able 
to  account  for  anything  in  the  way  of  trouble,  peril,  or 
difficulty,  which  is  undertaken  in  the  case  of  this  law ; 
that  it  is  a  motive  which  requires  no  addition,  and 
which  entirely  extinguishes,  and  makes  people  not 
reckon  and  hardly  perceive,  any  combination  of  labour 
and  pain  which  they  have  to  surmount  in  satisfying 
it.  This  would  be  their  whole  notion  of  the  law  of 
Goel,  and  they  would  dismiss  it  with  this  round  de- 
scription of  it.  Now  this  may  be  the  case  in  some 
kinds  of  revenge,  in  such  as  are  strictly  personal,  when, 
e.g.,  the  individual  writhes  under  the  sting  of  some 
studied  insult,  or  some  violent  wrong  which  has  been 
inflicted  upon  himself.  But  I  apprehend  that  it  makes 
a  considerable  difference  in  the  impetuosity  of  ven- 
geance whether  it  is  for  a  wrong  that  has  happened  to  a 
man's  self,  or  for  a  wrong  that  has  happened  to  another 
person.  To  revenge  another  person's  wrong  is  a  very 
different  thing  from  revenging  your  own.  To  be  in  a 
high  state  of  indignation  about  what  has  happened  to 
another  person,  and  to  feel  the  extremity  of  torture 
and  disquiet  until  you  have  avenged  him.  is,  at  any 
rate,  a  condition  of  mind  in  advance  upon  the  ordinary 
motive  of  revenge.  In  the  present  case  the  wrong  has 


Retaliation :  Law  of  Goel.  205 

happened  to  another  person.  Another  person  has  been 
killed  by  somebody.  But  to  go  off  in  pursuit  of  some- 
body in  consequence, — to  commit  yourself  to  a  long- 
search  after  somebody,  over  rivers,  across  deserts, 
through  forests,  marshes,  morasses,  and  quagmires,  up 
mountains  and  steeps,  down  perilous  descents,  by 
edges  of  precipices,  under  burning  suns,  with  chance 
scraps  of  food,  and  without  any  certain  prognostica- 
tions of  the  issue,  whether  it  may  not  be  worse  for  the 
pursuer  than  for  the  pursued, — this  would  hardly  be 
reckoned  generally  a  convenient,  desirable,  and  grati- 
fying piece  of  business  to  execute.  It  was  a  consider- 
able task  to  impose  upon  a  man.  Under  any  circum- 
stances the  pursuit  would  be  a  good  deal  of  trouble ; 
it  involves  breaking  away  from  his  family,  his  busi- 
ness, the  satisfying  routine  of  the  day,  the  settled 
duties  and  comforts  of  his  ordinary  life.  But  it  is  for 
one  near  of  kin  ;  and  does  not  that  consideration 
inspire  the  keenest  ardour  against  wrong,  and  kindle 
the  most  burning  appetite  for  revenge?  "Would  it 
not  wholly  suppress  and  annihilate  every  counter 
wish,  and  every  selfish  hesitation  ?  But  do  relations 
invariably  impress  their  memories  upon  their  sur- 
vivors with  that  powerful  sweetness  which  makes  all 
labours  in  defence  and  vindication  of  them,  rewards, 
and  all  weariness  delight  ?  The  law  of  Goel  does  not 
discriminate  in  this  respect.  The  nearest  of  kin  must 
avenge  the  near  of  kin.  He  may  have  been  a  very 
distant  relation,  and  he  may  have  been  by  no  means 
one  who  had  acquired  the  key  to  his  affections ;  but 
the  law  is  rigid,  is  imperative ;  he  cannot  hang  back  ; 


206  Retaliation  :  Law  of  GoeL 

to  stay  behind  and  let  the  criminal  make  good  his 
escape,  is  irrecoverable  infamy  and  degradation,  to  the 
nearest  of  kin.  He  must  start  off  then  in  pursuit. 

But  it  needs  no  strong  penetration  to  see  that  there 
must  come  under  the  operation  of  this  law  a  great  num- 
ber of  instances  in  which  the  law  was  by  no  means  felt 
by  the  person  who  had  to  carry  it  into  execution  as 
putting  him  in  an  eligible  situation.  There  must  have 
been  many  instances  in  which  the  ex  officio  avenger 
would  not, — had  the  sanctity  of  custom  and  the 
obligations  of  honour  allowed  him, — have  obstinately 
grasped  at  his  official  privilege  and  distinction.  You 
picture  him  to  yourself  always  furiously  stimulated  by 
the  passion  of  vengeance ;  and  the  hot  pursuit  as  a 
pure  gratification  to  the  avenger ;  but  does  your  expe- 
rience of  human  nature  indicate  that  men  of  them- 
selves would  invariably  take  the  violent  death  of  a 
relation  so  deeply  to  heart  that  they  would  go  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth  to  revenge  it?  They  would  all  desire 
justice  no  doubt — but  would  they  all  go  off  on  a 
knight-errant  expedition  to  get  it  ?  There  must  have 
been  a  great  many  avengers  of  blood  who  in  their 
hearts  would  have  tolerated,  without  absolute  despair, 
a  temporary  sleep  of  justice.  Popular  opinion  obliged 
them  to  rush  hot  upon  the  pursuit,  and  nothing  but 
an  immediate  chase  would  be  suffered ;  but  had  the 
avenger  been  allowed  to  consult  an  easy  and  accom- 
modating disposition  rather  than  a  stern  law,  might 
not  a  much  slighter  investigation  into  the  matter  some- 
times have  satisfied  him?  After  all,  human  nature, 
without  some — more  than  hint — some  coercion  from 


Retaliation:  Law  of  Goel.  207 

the  fount  of  law,  is  not  morosely  and  inexorably  faithful 
to  the  rights  of  the  dead.  Out  of  sight  out  of  mind. 
The  gap  which  even  violence  creates  is  soon  filled  by 
the  rolling  tide  of  life ;  and  even  justice  acquiesces  and 
subsides  under  the  pressure  of  fresh  facts.  Enough 
perhaps  has  been  done,  and  the  matter  might  as  well 
rest.  Inquiry  cannot  go  on  for  ever — ne  quid  nimis  : 
justice  may  be  over  rigid,  and  demand  more  than  can 
be  done  for  her.  With  such  reflections  as  these,  the 
thirst  for  vengeance  cools  in  the  reflecting  breast  of 
the  avenger  of  blood ;  and  he  contents  himself  with  the 
ordinary  double  office  of  the  nearest  of  kin  and  heir ; 
which  is,  to  give  his  departed  relative  a  solemn  and 
imposing  funeral,  and  to  enter  upon  the  enjoyment  of 
his  estate. 

Indeed,  if  we  throw  ourselves  back  upon  very 
early  times,  and  contemplate  the  situation  in  which 
justice  was  placed  in  the  case  of  a  violent  death,  we 
shall  see  that  it  was  a  state  of  things,  the  necessities 
of  which  it  was  by  no  means  easy  to  meet.  In  a 
civilised  age  this  is  all  arranged  for  us,  and  we  have 
nothing  to  do  but  to  use  the  means  at  hand:  the 
police  finds  out  the  murderer,  a  prison  holds  him,  and 
the  court  tries  him.  But  in  that  primordial  age,  in 
which  there  were  neither  police,  prisons,  nor  courts, 
and  yet  there  was  a  sense  of  justice  in  the  world, 
what  action  was  to  be  taken?  Undoubtedly  it  is 
everybody's  interest  in  general  to  avenge  a  murder, 
but  it  is  not  enough  to  acknowledge  that ;  something 
must  be  done  now,  immediately :  while  at  the  same 
time  the  murderer  is  off,  gone  nobody  knows  where. 


208  Retaliation  :  Law  of  Goel. 

Imagine  then  a  time  before  there  was  any  institution  of 
Goel, — which  armed  a  particular  person  with  authority 
for  the  occasion,  and  put  the  law  into  his  hands, — and 
justice  is  reduced  indeed  to  a  great  strait ;  it  is  not 
able  to  do  anything  simply  for  want  of  an  executive ; 
there  is  no  authorised  officer  of  justice ;  there  is  no 
staff  to  start  with.  In  this  perplexity,  then,  a  disposi- 
tion arises  to  found  some  primordial  apparatus  of 
justice.  But  the  rude  ages  of  the  world,  in  this  very 
commencement  of  the  work  of  administering  justice, 
are  disposed  to  take  decided  advantage  of  the  diffi- 
culties of  justice.  It  would  be  by  no  means  true  to 
say  that  rude  and  violent  ages  were  entirely  destitute 
of  a  certain  kind  of  moderate  tactics; — an  accommodat- 
ing temper  in  particular  emergencies ;  a  disinclination 
to  pushing  matters  to  extremes,  and  a  partiality  for 
compromises.  Savage  people  take  a  practical  view 
of  things  in  their  own  way ;  they  do  not  look  far 
before  them  ;  or  think  of  adopting  any  course  which 
will  be  ultimately  and  on  a  large  scale  beneficial,  at 
the  cost  of  some  temporary  inconvenience ;  but  they 
have  a  notion  of  a  convenient  settlement  and  arrange- 
ment for  the  moment.  In  coming  to  deal,  then,  with 
the  subject  of  violent  deaths,  a  view  of  a  practical 
kind  rose  up  in  rude  ages,  which,  if  there  had  been 
any  need  to  do  so,  would  have  expressed  itself  in  the 
case  of  a  murder  somewhat  in  this  way  : — "  This  is 
a  bad  business,  but  another  death  does  not  mend  it. 
Let  us  come  to  a  sensible  understanding  about  the 
matter.  One  thing  is  certain ;  whatever  we  do  now 
that  he  is  gone,  we  cannot  bring  him  back  again.  The 


Retaliation :  Law  of  Goel.  209 

gates  of  death  have  closed  over  our  friend,  and  he  is 
where  we  cannot  get  at  him ;  we  cannot  bring  him  to 
life  again  by  any  blood  that  we  may  shed.  To  kill 
another  man,  then,  cannot  do  him  any  good  :  it  cannot 
do  us  any  good.  But  the  infliction  of  a  heavy  fine 
upon  the  offender  promises  to  be  a  really  useful  pun- 
ishment ;  it  is  a  retribution  upon  him,  it  is  a  benefit 
to  us ; — not  an  equivalent,  indeed,  for  the  great  blow 
which  has  fallen  upon  us,  which  is  not  to  be  expected, 
but  a  rectification  so  far  as  the  case  admits  of  it.  On 
the  whole,  and  all  circumstances  considered,  perhaps 
the  best  compensation  to  enforce  for  our  irreparable 
loss  is  a  good  round  sum."  Something  of  this  kind 
of  reasoning  would  seem  to  have  founded  the  money- 
compensation  for  homicide,  which  rose  up  among  the 
Hindoos  and  among  the  Germans,  with  whom,  Tacitus 
remarks — "  Luitur  homicidium  certo  armentorum  ac 
pecorum  numero." x 

But  it  is  obvious  that  such  a  judicial  arrange- 
ment as  this,  though  it  avoided  the  blind  bloodshed 
of  the  law  of  Goel,  its  striking  at  the  first  person 
that  offered,  and  killing  the  wrong  man,  if  it  so 
happened,  or  mistaking  his  crime,  could  never  have 
sown  the  seed  of  civilised  justice.  For  regular 
justice  the  retributive  principle  was  necessary,  and 
death  for  death  was  the  only  way  of  meeting  murder ; 
the  only  solid  preventive  of  it.  In  however  rude 
and  uncertain  a  form,  then,  the  law  of  Goel  was 
the  true  germ  of  civilised  justice,  which,  sanguinary 
for  the  moment,  seized  hold  of  the  true  judicial  scope 

1  Germ.  21. 
P 


2io  Retaliation:  Law  of  GoeL 

of  security  for  the  future  ;  and  by  the  terror  of  death 
protected  human  life.  The  fine  was  no  help  against 
violence  to  come;  and,  as  Michaelis  observes — "The 
poor  man  has  little  security  for  his  life  against  the 
rich,  because  the  latter  has  the  means  of  averting 
retaliation,  by  persuading  the  poor  man's  relations, 
which  will  seldom  be  a  very  difficult  matter,  to  accept 
of  money  in  lieu  of  blood."1  The  fine  was  an  oblique 
and  distorted  aim  to  begin  with.  But  the  institution 
of  Goel  caught  up  the  first  movement  of  genuine  jus- 
tice and  indignation  at  wrong,  gave  it  its  swing, 
and  put  the  case  in  its  hand.  *  With  all  its  hazard  and 
haste,  it  still  contemplated  as  its  object  the  simple 
punishment  of  crime.  The  judicial  aim  was  true,  but 
acting  under  the  greatest  difficulties  with  respect  to 
evidence,  and  obliged  to  take  up  with  the  first  prima 
facie  indications  of  the  criminal,  and  the  quality  of 
the  crime.  A  true  aim,  however,  once  rooted,  gradu- 
ally cleared  a  way  for  its  own  execution  ;  it  built  up 
the  necessary  structure  of  police,  courts,  and  wit- 
nesses, and  raised  up  the  edifice  of  civilised  justice. 
And  thus  the  Jewish  Law,  in  adopting  the  institution 
of  Goel,  imposed  and  enjoined  an  imperfect  form  of 
justice,  which,  as  acting  under  defect  of  evidence,  was 
rash  and  precipitate,  but  still  acted  as  the  basis  and 
commencement  of  a  regular  civil  justice.  The  law  of 
Goel  was,  at  any  rate,  a  law  which  severed  human 
nature  from  its  lethargy  and  indifference.  "With  all  its 
extravagance  and  looseness,  it  compelled  men  to  ac- 
knowledge the  claims  of  the  dead,  to  avenge  their 

1  Book  iii.  Art.  134. 


Retaliation :  Law  of  Goel.  211 

wrongs,  and  to  punish  the  wrong-doer.  And  a  law, 
with  such  a  root  of  nobility  and  justice  in  it,  was  not 
unfit  for  adoption,  as  a  temporary  curb  upon  human 
nature,  till  it  could  admit  of  a  higher  discipline  by  the 
Divine  Lawgiver,  whose  necessary  policy,  when  He 
gave  laws  to  unenlightened  man,  was  accommodation. 
So  again  with  respect  to  the  principle  of  whole- 
sale justice, — the  subject  of  a  previous  Lecture, — 
which  included  the  family  in  the  guilt  of  the  criminal 
himself,  and  the  whole  of  a  people  or  nation,  the 
children  with  the  rest,  in  the  guilt  of  the  sinning  and 
predominant  part  of  the  nation ;  this  was  also  an 
instance  of  a  rude  imperfect  justice,  deeply  seated 
in  the  early  retributive  impulse  and  sentiment  of 
mankind,  which  was  adopted  by  God  in  His  leadership 
of  the  Jewish  nation  in  its  hostile  career  against  other 
nations.  The  Israelites  were  commanded  by  God  to 
put  that  principle  in  practice  against  particular  nations ; 
and  therefore,  in  these  cases,  God  commanded  acts  of 
an  imperfect  morality.  But  such  a  course  of  Divine 
conduct  is  upon  no  reasonable  principle  liable  to 
objection.  A  rude  imperfect  sort  of  justice  being  at 
that  time  the  idea  of  justice  which  mankind  had,  and 
that  being  the  shape  which  the  principle  of  justice 
assumed  in  their  minds,  to  lay  it  down  that  God  was 
not  to  regulate  the  execution  of  that  imperfect  law  of 
justice, — and  command  the  application  of  it  to  one 
nation  as  distinguished  from  another  nation, — accord- 
ing as  it  agreed  with  His  great  design  regarding  the 
Jewish  people,  would  be  an  untenable  and  unreason- 
able position.  How  can  we  exclude  it  from  the  scope 


212  Retaliation :  Law  of  Goel. 

of  His  Providence,  such  being  the  justice  of  that  age  of 
the  world,  to  direct  that  justice  into  its  proper  channel  ; 
and  to  put  it  into  men's  hearts  by  extraordinary  signs 
and  tokens,  to  inflict  it  upon  this  person  rather  than 
that  person,  upon  this  family  or  nation  rather  than 
upon  that ;  and  to  watch  over,  and  superintend  ad- 
ministration of,  an  unframed  and  sanguinary  but  still 
sacred  law  of  retribution  ?  Adopting,  for  the  sake  of 
argument,  the  theory  of  the  Quakers,  and  supposing 
all  war  to  be  wrong,  could  we  still  pronounce  that  war 
did  not  come  under  the  active  providence  of  God ;  and 
that  it  was  not  within  its  province  to  cause  certain  wars 
to  be  made,  and  to  suggest  and  give  occasion  for  the 
undertaking  of  some  wars  rather  than  of  others, 
according  as  the  interests  of  society  or  religion  might 
require  ?  To  exclude  in  this  way  all  moral  patterns 
from  the  Divine  recognition,  except  the  perfect  one, 
would  be  simply  to  shut  God  out  of  the  direction  of 
His  own  world ;  because  in  such  direction  God  must 
deal  with  man  as  he  is,  and  prompt  him  to  do,  and 
impart  to  him  the  will  to  do,  good  actions,  according 
to  the  type  and  measure  of  goodness  to  which  his 
understanding  in  each  age  is  confined.  Is  it  an  awful 
solemnity  then  of  retributive  justice  that  God  commits 
to  the  agency  of  man?  It  must  necessarily  be  a 
justice  of  the  type  then  acknowledged  in  the  world  ; 
and  it  must  be  a  justice  of  the  excessive  type,  if  the 
occasion  is  extraordinary.  To  command  justice,  and 
to  command  that  pattern  of  justice,  is  therefore  in 
fact  the  same  thing ;  because,  for  the  very  purpose  of 
justice  itself,  it  was  necessary  that  it  should  be  a  justice 


Retaliation :  Law  of  Goel.  213 

which  man  could  understand,  and  this  excessive  type 
of  justice  was  what  he  understood  as  justice. 

This  idea,  as  has  been  said,  was  not  connected 
with  cruel  or  inhuman  motives  in  the  minds  of  those 
who  held  it.  There  was  no  malice  in  it,  no  delight  in 
pain,  no  love  of  destruction  for  its  own  sake ;  it  was  at 
the  root  a  genuine  sense  of  retributive  justice,  only  not 
regulated  by  the  strict  sense  of  human  individuality. 
"Was  this  sense  of  justice,  then,  no  proper  subject  of 
Divine  regulation  and  direction  ?  God  cannot  indeed 
sanction  the  audacity  of  a  fanatic,  who  takes  up  and 
revives  the  error  of  earlier  justice  after  the  enlightened 
conscience  of  man  has  cast  it  aside ;  for  that  which  is 
imperfection  before  the  illumination  is  sin  against  light 
after  it.  And  this  distinction  will  exclude  from  that 
religious  shelter  many  notorious  acts  of  enthusiasts  in 
later  times,  as  well  as  some  mistaken  courses  of  policy 
into  which  the  Christian  mind  has  been  misled.  But 
an  imperfect  idea  of  justice,  so  long  as  it  is  only  imper- 
fection, and  belongs  to  the  earlier  state  of  man  before 
he  has  advanced  in  the  path  of  truth,  is  moral  at  the 
root.  Do  we  exclude  it  from  the  Divine  recognition, 
as  if  God  could  not  direct  it  without  violating  His 
own  moral  nature  ?  We  are  not  fair  to  this  early  idea 
of  justice.  It  was  a  sacred,  a  strong  moral  idea  — 
struggling  with  confusion  and  mistakes,  carried 
off  by  false  lights,  and  entangled  in  an  intricacy 
of  unformed  thought,  which  perplexed  the  idea  of 
human  personality.  We  can  hardly  unthread  now 
this  labyrinth,  and  clear  up  those  curious  substitutions 
and  transferences  of  identity,  which  are  like  the 


214  Retaliation:  Law  of  Goel. 

reasonings  of  a  man  in  a  dream;  or  get  at  the  sense  of 
those  early  snares  and  mazes  in  which  reason  was 
caught,  and  those  forms  of  thinking  to  which  she  bent 
herself  with  such  flexibility,  accepting  their  impress 
and  the  chain  of  habit.  Yet  this  was  vehement 
early  justice,  enveloped  as  it  was,  like  some  strong 
animal,  in  a  net  by  its  own  very  force  and  impetuosity. 
Do  not  take  a  police  court  to  judge  it  by.  Throw  your- 
self back  into  the  first  ages  of  the  world,  look  at  its 
serious,  its  profound  sense  of  retribution,  so  full  of  fear 
and  awe,  working  itself  into  shape,  extricating  itself  out 
of  its  meshes,  and  clearing  its  ground  gradually  out  of 
haze  and  darkness ;  and  you  will  be  able,  with  all  its 
wildness,  to  respect  early  justice.  It  was  that  excess 
which  made  a  foundation  for  the  mean;  a  mere  defect 
and  want  of  the  passion  would  have  been  a  barren 
spring. 

God  then  directed  into  particular  channels,  He 
applied  to  the  Canaanites,  He  applied  to  the  fami- 
lies of  Korah,  Dathan,  and  Abiram,  He  applied  to  the 
family  of  Achan,  He  applied  to  the  family  of  Saul,  a 
kind  of  justice  which  was  the  recognised  justice  of  that 
age,  which  formed  a  prominent  feature  of  the  civil  law 
of  the  age,  and  which  the  ancient  Jewish  people  main- 
tained with  the  rest  of  the  world ;  only  with  the 
qualification  that  it  did  not  enter  into  their  regular 
body  of  law,  but  awaited  special  Divine  commands. 
That  was  the  justice  of  the  day,  and  that  was  the 
justice  -by  which  the  first  period  of  the  world  marked 
its  sense  of  good  and  evil.  The  exclusion  of  such 
would  have  been  unintelligible  to  the  age,  as  that 


Retaliation :  Law  of  GoeL  2 1 5 

form  of  justice  was  then  the  natural  bulwark  of  Divine 
law. 

Divine  commands,  then,  we  see,  no  more  in  reality 
compromise  the  moral  nature  of  the  Deity  than  per- 
missions do.  On  the  one  hand,  He  can  no  more  permit, 
in  the  sense  of  sanctioning,  positive  wickedness,  than 
He  can  command  it;  while,  on  the  other,  He  can 
command  imperfectly  right  actions  as  much  as  He  can 
permit  them.  But  if  these  commands  were  accommo- 
dations to  early  justice,  they  at  the  same  time  directed 
and  applied  it  to  great  ends, — to  marking  great  sins, 
and  so  to  impressing  the  Jewish  people  with  a  sense  of 
the  heinousness  of  such  sins.  How  strongly  could  a 
judicious  and  sagacious  man  of  the  world  argue  for  the 
right  which  he  had, — and  had  found  it  expedient  to 
exercise, — of  communicating  a  piece  of  knowledge  in 
that  shape  in  which  an  inferior  mind  could  receive  it, 
but  which  was  not  itself  the  absolute  truth  !  How 
sensibly  he  would  demonstrate  the  unavoidableness  of 
such  a  course ;  with  what  solid  force  would  he  state 
the  duty  to  give  another  so  much  truth  as  he  was 
capable  of  taking  in,  when  the  narrow  capacity  of  the 
recipient  precluded  the  communication  of  the  whole ; 
and  with  what  discrimination  would  he  vindicate  the 
distinction  between  pure  error  and  partial  truth ! 
Now  the  case  of  moral  practice  is  quite  analogous  to 
that  of  truth.  Yet  the  man  who  can  see  so  clearly 
the  legitimacy  of  accommodation  in  his  own  case,  when 
he  comes  to  the  case  of  the  Divine  Legislator,  refuses 
to  allow  in  Him  any  condescension  to  unenlightened 
men;  and  incloses  the  Deity  in  a  network  of  casuistry 


2i6  Retaliation:  Law  of  Goel. 

which  precludes  Him  from  acting  in  His  own  world. 
On  this  rule  what  man  is  incapable  of  receiving  must  on 
that  very  account  be  given  him ;  and  God  can  com- 
mand nothing  but  what  is  perfect,  while  man  can  only 
receive  what  is  defective.  What  is  an  impracticable 
procedure  is  thus  alone  a  right  one ;  whatever  is  pos- 
sible for  man's  guidance  is  wrong.  Imprisoned  in  this 
inextricable  dilemma,  the  Deity  is  thus  precluded  from 
dealing  with  His  own  world,  and  from  taking  the  only 
course  which  can  be  taken  for  educating  man ;  that  of 
sustaining  an  imperfect  standard  before  he  can  be 
raised  to  a  perfect  one.  But  this  is  to  impose  on  the 
Deity  a  scrupulous  and  fantastic  morality  which 
rational  persons  reject  for  their  own  conduct ;  and  to 
make  that  a  law  to  God  which  is  fanaticism  for  man. 

St.  Augustine,  when  he  came  to  the  question  of 
Scripture  criticism,  upon  moral  grounds,  adopted  this 
great  principle — that  which  Scripture  gives  us,  viz.  that 
God  commands  according  to  the  state  of  mind  of  the 
recipient  of  the  command.  Is  he  in  a  perverse  or  a 
mutinous  and  obstinate  state  ?  The  command  then 
becomes  hostile  to  him  by  the  very  leaning  and  favour 
it  shows  to  his  wickedness.  Is  he  simply  in  an  igno- 
,rant  state  of  mind  following  the  standard  of  the  day  ? 
The  command,  then,  is  not  hostile,  but  only  pitying 
and  condescending.  It  tells  him  to  do  what  he  is 
equal  to ;  what  is  the  best  thing  he  can  do  under  the 
circumstances.  But  still  it  is  the  same  principle  kept 
up :  the  command  follows  the  state  of  mind.  God 
ordinarily  commands  a  sinner  to  do  something  right, 
though  He  knows  he  will  disobey  Him;  but  He 


Retaliation :  Law  of  Gael.  217 

reserves  to  Himself  the  right,  if  He  think  good,  to 
command  him  in  judgment ;  and,  if  he  has  put  himself 
by  his  previous  conduct  out  of  the  sphere  of  discipline 
and  instruction,  to  do  what  is  wrong.  And  still  more 
when,  in  consequence  of  his  imperfect  knowledge  of 
right,  it  is  necessary  that  he  should  be  imperfectly 
commanded,  does  God  give  imperfect  commands. 

Divines  and  commentators  on  Scripture  have  thus 
sometimes  erred,  when  they  come  to  a  difficulty  in 
morals  in  Scripture,  in  placing  the  defence  of  the  act 
criticised  entirely  upon  the  strength  of  a  positive 
command  of  God,  without  at  the  same  time  any  refer- 
ence to  the  state  of  mind  of  the  agent.  Thus  Calvin 
defends  the  spoiling  of  the  Egyptians  simply  as  having 
been  commanded  by  God : — the  whole  world,  and  all 
that  is  in  it,  is  God's  property,  and  He  can  give  it  to 
whom  He  pleases ;  and  from  the  time  of  the  donation 
it  ceases  to  be  the  property  of  him  to  whom  it  has 
hitherto  belonged,  and  becomes  the  property  of  the 
person  into  whose  hands  it  has  been  transferred.  But 
although  this  is  in  the  abstract  undeniably  true,  the 
mind  of  a  man  who  was  commanded  to  steal  another 
man's  goods  would  be  divided  as  to  whether  it  was  a 
Divine  command ; — because  there  would  be  a  miracu- 
lous argument  one  way  and  a  moral  argument  another, 
—unless  his  moral  state  of  mind  were  of  itself  an  im- 
perfect one.  The  command  might  be  given,  but  it 
would  only  be  obeyed  if  the  mind  itself  acquiesced  in 
the  robbery  from  a  defect  of  its  own ;  or  from  the  wild 
and  irregular  standard  which  it  had  naturally  got 
from  the  age,  and  from  the  circumstances  of  the 


218  Retaliation:  Law  of  GoeL 

world.  The  defence  implies  a  certain  laxer  sense 
of  theft  and  standard  of  property  in  the  person, 
due  to  the  fault  of  his  age  rather  than  his  own, 
and  does  not  rest  upon  a  Divine  command  alone. 
Calvin's  defence,  then,  of  the  act  of  the  Israelites 
is  artificial,  and  wants  natural  strength.  Theo- 
doret  is  more  natural,  and  expresses  a  sense  of 
irregular  and  loose  justice  when  he  says  that  what 
they  stole  from  the  Egyptians  at  going,  was  only  a 
return  for  the  unpaid  labour  they  spent  in  building 
the  Pyramids.  Tertullian  says  that  it  was  only  a 
small  compensation  in  reality  for  the  work  of  the 
Israelites.  Chrysostom  says  it  was  a  belligerent 
right ;  Israel  had  a  right  to  make  war  upon  Egypt 
for  great  wrongs.  These  explanations  all  point  to  a 
moral  vindication,  upon  a  ground  of  such  popular 
justice  as  was  thought  to  be  justice  at  that  day, 
rather  than  to  a  ground  of  positive  Divine  authority 
proved  by  miraculous  intervention. 

The  objection,  indeed,  which  is  felt  to  the  Deity,  in 
the  spirit  of  accommodation,  commanding  classes  of 
actions  which  are  defective  in  morality,  arises  from 
critics  of  the  Old  Testament  morality  having  chosen 
to  represent  all  these  species  of  actions  as  not  only  im- 
perfectly moral,  but  as  positively  bad.  Thus,  critics 
of  a  certain  school  have  chosen  to  characterise  all 
those  actions  of  excessive  justice  which  have  been 
described  as  wholly  bloodthirsty,  vindictive,  selfish, 
and  barbarous,  in  their  object  and  motives.  They 
set  down  all  this  early  action  of  mankind  to  simple 
inhumanity ;  then  they  say,  How  can  we  suppose  the 


Retaliation :  Law  of  Goel.  219 

Deity  commanding  such  practices  as  these  ?  They  see 
no  moral  element  in  them,  only  the  outbreak  of  hateful 
passion.  They  see  in  retaliation  only  impetuous  re- 
venge ;  they  see  in  the  law  of  Goel  only  the  violent 
thirst  for  blood ;  they  see  in  the  exterminating  wars 
of  the  Old  Testament  only  the  savage  success  of  rapine 
and  slaughter.  They  have  no  notion  of  such  actions, 
except  such  as  is  described  in  these  terms ;  and  then 
they  say,  How  can  God  command  such  actions  ?  Is 
it  not  inconsistent  with  His  attributes  to  do  so? 
But  before  critics  of  Old  Testament  morality  object 
upon  these  grounds  to  the  Deity  commanding 
in  early  ages  those  actions,  they  should  first  of 
all  be  sure  that  they  do  not  themselves  grossly 
depreciate  and  misrepresent  such  actions;  that  they 
do  not  misunderstand  them;  that  the  picture  they 
have  of  them  before  their  minds  is  not  the  coarsest 
daub ;  and  that  by  their  gratuitous  assumptions  they 
have  not  altogether  dispossessed  themselves  of  the 
moral  key  to  those  actions.  Such  wholesale  con- 
demnation shows  an  exceedingly  false  estimate  of 
these  early  practices  and  proceedings.  This  early 
action  of  the  sacred  people  was  in  truth  inspired, 
in  the  substance  of  it,  with  a  sense  of  justice,  and 
with  hatred  of  crime ;  it  was  impregnated  with  high 
feeling,  vindication  of  right,  protection  of  weakness, 
reverence  for  the  dead  ;  though  there  was  excess 
and  confusion  in  it, — peo.ple  not  discriminating 
accurately,  and  rushing  impatiently  into  satisfying 
a  rude  appetite  for  just  punishment.  Especially, 
to  set  down  the  retributions  of  the  Israelitish  code 


22O  Retaliation:  Law  of  Go  el. 

simply  to  sanguinary  motives,  is  to  do  total  wrong 
to  the  first  great  Teachings  after  civil  justice  in  the 
world, — to  those  wild  and  irregular  but  still  noble  im- 
pulses which  formed  a  barrier  for  the  weak  against  the 
strong. 

Although  for  God  to  command  simple  cruelty 
and  simple  revenge  is  impossible,  and  such  an  idea 
must  be  rejected  as  horrible ;  it  was  not  unfitting  to 
Him,  rather  it  was  most  meet  and  most  suitable  to 
His  divine  benevolence, — in  indulgence  to  man's  infir- 
mity and  slow  moral  growth, — to  sustain  the  imper- 
fect rudimental  forms  of  the  great  institutions  of  civil 
justice.  That  righteous  power  in  the  community, 
grand  in  its  maturity,  was  noble  also  in  its  birth ;  it 
was  great  even  in  infancy;  we  cannot  despise,  we  cannot 
pity,  we  can  only  reverence,  the  early  struggles  of  that 
great  principle,  as  with  effort,  against  infinite  obstruc- 
tions, and  in  the  absence  of  all  external  resources  and 
appliances  which  it  had  itself  to  create ; — with  the  very 
moral  sense  rushing  with  early  haste  and  impetuosity 
prematurely  to  its  object,  and  almost  enlisted  against 
justice, — this  sacred  passion  fought  its  way  to  stability, 
and  to  that  steady  supremacy  which  it  afterwards 
attained  in  the  state.  There  is,  at  its  very  first  rise 
and  commencement,  the  augury  of  the  future  edifice ;  a 
strength  which  shows  that  it  will  get  the  mastery. 
There  is  in  truth,  in  the  mere  fact  of  such  accommo- 
dating legislation,  a  pledge  implied  on  the  part  of  the 
Divine  Legislator  that  He  will  provide,  together  with 
it,  an  education  of  higher  scope  to  lead  to  a  more  per- 
fect standard ;  but  what  is  more,  this  pledge  is  ful- 


Retaliation :  Law  of  Goel.  221 

filled.  The  Jewish  dispensation,  as  a  whole,  does 
gradually  elevate  the  moral  sense  of  the  nation,  till  it 
is  prepared  for  the  reception  of  the  Christian  code;  and 
the  highest  sample  of  the  nation  does  in  fact  receive 
that  code,  and  spread  it  through  the  world.  And 
though  some  may  deny  that  such  a  result  was  due  to 
anything  but  the  natural  growth  of  human  reason, — - 
which  they  may  say  fully  accounts  for  it,  without 
the  need  of  a  special  revelation; — on  the  contrary, 
the  singularity  of  this  whole  issue,  unexampled  as  it 
was  in  the  world,  and  without  a  parallel  in  any  other 
nation,  shows  that  there  was  some  peculiar  power  at 
work  in  the  Jewish  dispensation,  and  that  the  people 
had  been  under  a  special  educating  Providence.  But 
this  will  be  the  subject  of  another  Lecture. 


LECTURE  X. 

THE   END   THE   TEST 
OF  A   PROGRESSIVE    REVELATION. 

"OUT  it  will  be  said  that  upon  the  estimate  of  the 
-*^  moral  standard  of  the  Old  Testament  revelation, 
arrived  at  in  the  foregoing  Lectures,  we  describe 
revelation  as  only  giving  men  those  commands  which 
men  give  themselves.  It  will  be  said,  What  is  the 
use  of  a  revelation  which  only  does  this  ?  The  very 
use  of  a  revelation,  it  will  be  urged,  is  to  give  men 
a  higher  standard  than  what  they  have  by  nature. 
If  the  Jewish  revelation,  then,  did  not  do  this,  but 
only  adopted  and  imposed  the  existing  highest  moral 
level,  what  more  did  it  do  for  man  than  man  had 
already  done  for  himself  ?  and  how  was  a  revelation 
any  advantage  which  only  established  what  had  been 
established  without  a  revelation  ?  If  man  was  not  fit 
for  a  higher  law,  and  if  that  excuses  the  low  standard 
of  revelation,  it  is  still  unexplained  what  use  a  low 
revelation  is,  which  only  takes  man  and  provides  for 
him  at  his  present  level. 

But  a  progressive  revelation,  such  as  the  Jewish, 
may  adopt  for  its  present  use  the  highest  imperfect 
moral  standard  of  the  age,  as  embodied  in  particular 
rules  and  precepts,  and  may  yet  contain  an  inner 


The  End  the  Test.  223 

movement  and  principle  of  growth  in  it,  which  will 
ultimately  extricate  it  as  a  law  out  of  the  shackles  of 
a  rudimentary  stage.  In  the  Jewish  dispensation  there 
was  something  besides,  over  and  above  the  actual  letter 
of  the  law,  which  accompanied  the  dispensation.  The 
actual  letter,  indeed,  was  a  rise  above  the  established 
popular  standard,  as  the  checks  upon  the  law  of  retali- 
ation and  the  law  of  Goel  show.  But  there  was  also 
a  principle  of  progress  in  the  system,  over  and  above 
the  letter;  an  inner  spirit  and  movement  in  it,  a 
standing  guidance  which  tended  strictly  in  one  direc- 
tion. The  worship  of  the  one  true  God  was  in  itself 
the  great  purifying  and  elevating  principle  of  the 
system ;  drawing  the  heart  and  understanding  upward, 
and  giving  a  tendency  toward  ascent  and  advance  to 
all  the  true  moral  elements  in  man.  The  dispensation 
itself  looked  out  of  itself ;  it  looked  forward.  It  con- 
fessed its  own  shortcomings ;  it  owned  itself  a  prepa- 
ratory and  rudimental  structure.  This  was  the  standing 
prophecy  which  inhabited  the  older  dispensation,  and 
did  not  belong  only  as  an  individual  gift  to  particular 
persons,  but  abode  like  a  guiding  spirit  in  the  nation ; 
inspiring  it  with  a  sense  of  an  end  beyond  its  present 
state,  a  goal  in  the  distance  towards  which  it  was 
advancing.  The  vision  of  the  pious  Jew  overlooked  the 
immediate  prospect  of  his  nation,  to  fix  upon  a  remoter 
horizon  which  was  illuminated  by  a  mysterious  glory, 
and  gleamed  with  a  knowledge  and  perfection  of  which 
he  had  no  accurate  conception,  but  which  still  raised 
the  future  above  the  present  day  of  the  nation,  and 
represented  the  latter  only  as  a  journey  toward  that 


224  The  End  the  Test  of 

future  day.  And  the  same  prophetical  spirit  in  the 
people  was  also  the  teacher  of  the  people.  An  instruc- 
tion was  going  on  in  the  Jewish  nation  throughout  its 
whole  course, — the  instruction,  not  of  the  outward  law, 
but  of  an  inward  mind,  a  spiritual  intelligence,  which 
maintained  its  place,  and  taught,  ex  cathedra,  in  the 
Jewish  church,  inspiring  and  illuminating  a  long  suc- 
cession of  prophets,  who  in  their  turn  revealed  and 
expounded  its  lessons  to  the  people.  In  a  word,  the 
Jewish  nation  was  under  a  special  Providence,  not 
only  with  regard  to  its  written  Law  but  also  with 
regard  to  a  special  spiritual  intelligence  which  had 
its  seat  and  taught  in  the  nation  throughout  the 
whole  period  of  the  Law.  Under  this  providential 
guidance,  the  eternal  principles  of  the  Law  were  extri- 
cated from  its  temporary  structure,  the  true  from  the 
passing  morals  : — the  reason  and  conscience  of  the  Jew 
were  enlightened  to  the  perception  of  what  was  right 
and  wrong. 

If,  then,  there  is  something  great  and  singular 
in  the  end,  the  end  shows  the  design  of  the  system  ; 
that  it  was  more  than  a  documentary  code ;  that  there 
was  a  living  guide  in  it,  working  in  a  special  direction 
all  the  time  that  it  was  making  use  of  an  imperfect 
standard  and  imperfect  law.  It  is  true,  then,  un- 
doubtedly, that  a'  Divine  dispensation  could  not  con- 
descend to  adopt  an  imperfect  moral  standard  as  a 
temporary  one,  unless  it  undertook  the  responsibility  at 
the  same  time  of  elevating  the  people  by  education 
up  to  a  true  standard ;  but  this  is  just  the  thing  that 
was  done.  A  prominent  feature  of  the  Jewish  dis- 


a  Progressive  Revelation.  225 

pensation  was  its  rude  public  justice ;  but  while  the 
Divine  dispensation  accommodated  itself  to  a  defective 
idea  of  justice,  it  was  at  the  very  same  time  eradicat- 
ing it :  it  was  laying  deep  in  the  human  mind  at  the 
very  time  the  foundation  of  an  enlightenment,  which 
would  utterly  supplant  that  defective  idea  of  man 
upon  which  that  faulty  justice  arose,  and  put  in  its 
place  the  true  spiritual  idea  of  human  individuality. 
The  whole  question  of  what  belongs  to  the  individual, 
what  power  one  man  has  over  another,  the  whole 
question  of  the  "  rights  of  man,"  has  been  one  of 
slow  growth.  The  whole  scheme  of  modern  thought 
on  this  subject  is  a  late  formation.  The  judicial  sense 
which  settles  these  points  is  comparatively  new.  A 
whole  cycle  was  necessary  to  be  gone  through,  a  long 
period  of  education,  before  this  principle  got  hold  of 
the  world ;  and  when  it  did,  it  came  out  of  revelation. 
For  out  of  no  philosophy  under  the  sun  has  the  idea 
of  the  "  rights  of  man  "  issued.  Philosophers  laid  it 
down  very  strongly  that  philosophers  were  great  men 
— that  they  were  "  kings ; "  but  man  as  such  was  not 
great  in  their  eyes.  It  may  be  true  that  Epictetus 
says  this,  and  that  some  other  philosopher  says  that ; 
but  what  came  of  anything  they  said  ?  Did  they  do 
anything?  Were  their  words  more  than  passing 
shadows,  or  the  two  or  three  feeble  beatings  of  a  pulse 
which  had  no  life  in  it  ?  They  were  hardly  even  pro- 
tests ;  and  for  any  force  they  had  the  world  might  have 
gone  on  in  its  old  way  till  now.  Even  the  sanguinary 
sport  of  the  gladiatorial  shows  was  not  interrupted  by 
them,  and  it  was  not  a  heathen  philosopher,  but  a 

Q 


226  The  End  the  Test  of 

Christian  devotee,  who  leapt  into  the  circus,  and  by 
the  protest  of  his  death  stopped  that  one  triumph  and 
exaltation  of  Satan.  And  the  aberrations  of  justice 
would  not  have  been  corrected  either.  Darius  might 
have  gone  on  casting  the  wives  and  children  to  the 
lions,  and  Nebuchadnezzar  might  have  continued  to 
convert  men's  houses  into  dunghills,  for  anything  these 
men  would  have  done.  But  in  the  Bible  there  is  an 
idea — an  idea  which  is  absolutely  inconsistent  with 
this  of  making  one  man  belong  to  another,  and  treating 
him  as  the  appendage  to  another.  It  was  an  idea 
which  could  not  be  kept  down,  but  must  work  its  way 
upward,  so  as  to  produce  at  last  true  justice ;  it  was 
the  idea  of  man  as  having  a  soul.  If  he  had  a  soul, 
he  could  not  be  part  of  another  man,  and  he  must  be 
himself,  and  no  one  else.  It  was  this  irrepressible 
germ  of  true  justice  and  true  freedom  which  was 
given  in  the  Old  Testament.  Moses  could  not  go  on 
imagining  that  he  was  the  appendage  to  another  man, 
when  he  himself  stood  face  to  face  with  God,  when  he 
could  pray  to  Him,  intercede  with  Him ;  when  he 
knew  that  he  had  power  with  God.  This  discovered 
man  to  himself,  this  showed  him  what  he  was,  this 
must  make  him  great  in  his  own  eyes ;  he  must  gain 
a  different  estimate  of  himself ;  he  was  great  though 
guilty,  nay,  and  even  his  guilt  was  like  some  dark 
background,  upon  which  his  greatness  stood  out ;  for 
his  consciousness  how  much  he  fell  short  of  his  own 
standard  only  revealed  the  excellence  of  his  own  type 
and  design.  That  he  was  in  relations  to  the  Universal 
Being  gave  him  a  substantial  being,  and  certified  it  to 


a  Progressive  Revelation.  227 

him:  communion  with  God  was  communion  with 
himself;  he  penetrated  into  himself,  and  religion 
unlocked  the  interior  of  his  soul  and  brought  its 
secrets  into  light ;  he  knew  himself  and  his  own  value ; 
that  he  was  not  the  creature  of  accidents, — mere  spray 
from  the  unceasing  tide  of  time,  which  rose  up  in  the 
air  and  vanished, — but  that  there  was  something  sub- 
stantial in  him. 

History,  and  we  may  add  the  drama,  has  unfolded 
in  its  own  way  the  greatness  of  man;  but  it  has 
only  done  this  for  certain  men — great  actors  on  the 
stage  of  life.  In  the  eye  of  revelation  every  man 
is  great, — born  for  eternity,  and  an  eternity  of  glory. 
It  was  impossible,  when  this  idea  of  himself  had 
been  matured  in  man,  that  it  should  not  have  its 
effect  upon  the  civil  status  of  man :  he  was  no  ap- 
purtenance, no  appendage,  no  belonging,  but  he  was 
himself.  Such  justice  as  the  early  justice  of  the  world, 
which  has  been  previously  considered,  became  an  im- 
possibility ;  one  man  could  not  be  punished  for  another 
man's  sins  ;  and  the  human  mass  stood  on  a  higher 
level  with  respect  to  civil  rights  and  freedom  generally. 

There  is  a  sense  which  is  neither  fanatical  nor 
carnal,  in  which  the  Bible  may  be  said  to  be  the 
charter  of  human  rights ;  it  has  endowed  man  with 
an  individuality  which  he  can  never  lose,  and  which 
rulers  must  respect.  The  governments  of  the  old 
world  and  the  new  rise  upon  different  bases.  The 
old  empires  were  founded  upon  the  depreciation  of 
man  ;  he  was  told  he  was  a  nobody,  that  he  was  a 
piece  of  property,  that  he  had  no  rights ;  and  being 


228  The  End  the  Test  of 

told  it,  he  believed  it ;  for  weak  man  estimates  himself 
according  as  others  estimate  him.  Let  everybody 
about  a  man  conspire  to  put  him  down,  and  he  is  put 
down,  he  is  lowered  in  his  own  eyes.  It  is  hard  for  a 
man's  sober  persuasion,  however  easy  for  his  infatuated 
vanity,  to  resist  an  external  impression.  He  has  to 
keep  up  a  standing  appeal  to  reason  against  the  force 
of  assertion,  which  is  always  difficult ;  he  has  to  do 
without  that  surrounding  and  confirming  voice  which 
relieves  the  inward  act  of  judgment.  A  man  distrusts 
his  own  assertion  the  next  moment,  if  half-a-dozen 
people  about  him  deny  it  with  sufficient  positiveness 
— unless  he  knows  his  ground  well.  The  force  of  out- 
ward opinion  acts  like  a  shock,  and  overthrows  us 
immediately,  unless  we  have  a  solid  ground  of  truth 
in  ourselves  to  resist  it.  Ancient  empires,  then,  were 
founded  upon  the  insignificance  of  man  ;  even  the  so- 
called  democracies  of  the  old  world  were  in  truth 
oligarchies  built  upon  the  degradation  of  the  mass. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  governments  of  the  new  world 
are  founded  upon  the  high  idea  of  man,  as  a  being 
who  has  substance,  rank,  and  rights.  Nor  is  this  the 
character  of  one  form  of  government  only,  but  of  all 
the  civilised  governments  of  modern  times,  whether 
democratic  or  despotic  in  form ;  all  recognise  man  as  a 
being  who  has  rights,  and  profess  to  legislate  for  the 
interests  of  the  mass.  It  would  be  doing  injustice  to 
the  most  rigid  European  despotism  to  put  it  at  all  on 
a  par  with  an  ancient  empire  on  this  head  ;  the  two 
are  based  upon  altogether  a  different  standard  of  what 
is  due  to  the  mass  of  the  people.  But  out  of  no 


a  Progressive  Revelation.  229 

philosophy  has  this  high  estimate  of  man  as  such 
come  :  it  has  come  straight  from  revelation.  There, 
in  the  relation  of  man  to  God,  is  the  origin  of  this 
great  change  of  rank.  Philosophy  did  not  put  man  in 
communion  with  God,  because  the  deity  of  philosophy 
was  no  object  of  worship,  and  there  was  no  rank 
gained  by  communion  with  idols ;  but  communion 
with  the  Universal  Being  gave  man  position,  exalted 
him,  and  clothed  him  with  honour. 

What  a  vast  body  indeed  of  philosophy,  poetry, 
and  literature  has  the  Bible  formed,  of  which  this 
sentiment  regarding  man  is  the  ruling  and  animating 
idea.  I  do  not  refer  to  writings  avowedly  expository 
or  illustrative  of  Scripture,  but  to  what  we  call  secular 
literature.  A  s  a  philosopher,  e.g.,  Pascal's  writings  come 
under  that  head.  We  know  the  force  and  majesty  of 
the  Thoughts  of  Pascal ;  the  realms  of  space  and  the 
worlds  in  them  are  full  of  grandeur  in  his  philosophy, 
but  there  is  one  thing  compared  with  which  all  this 
vast  material  universe  is  nothing.  "All  the  bodies, 
the  stars,  the  firmament,  the  earth  and  all  its  king- 
doms, are  not  worth  one  soul;  for  that  soul  knows 
both  itself  and  them,  and  they  know  nothing." 
The  human  soul  thus  stands  apart  and  by  itself 
as  the  one  thinking  substance,  but  it  does  not  stop 
at  this  stage  and  level.  Charity  is  above  thought. 
Charity  is  supernatural;  and  he  who  has  it  has  the  life 
supernatural  and  immortal.  Thus  in  the  universe 
sphere  rises  above  sphere.  Thought  and  charity  are 
each  sui  generis.  Thought  is  of  an  order  and  kind 
above  matter ;  charity  is  of  an  order  and  kind  above 


230  The  End  the  Test  of 

thought.  All  the  matter  in  the  world  could  not  pro- 
duce one  thought ;  all  the  thought  could  not  produce 
one  instance  of  charity.  "  La  distance  infinie  des  corps 
aux  esprits,  figure  la  distance  infiniment  plus  infinie  des 
esprits  a  la  charite."  But  man  was  designed  to  tran- 
scend this  infinite  space  and  attain  the  summit.  The 
idea  of  the  greatness  of  man — grandeur  de  Vdme 
humaine — thus  penetrates  the  philosophy  of  Pascal. 
He  pauses  to  look  at  this  being  at  each  of  these  two 
stages  of  his  progress.  First  he  contemplates  him  as  a 
thinking  being — "  Penseefait  la  grandeur  de  Thomme. 
...  La  grandeur  des  gens  d'esprit  est  invisible,  aux  rois, 
aux  riches,  aux  capitaines,  a  tous  ces  grands  de  chair." 
Then  he  contemplates  him  in  the  supernatural  character 
— "dans  son  ordre  de  saintete."  "Les  saints  n'ont 
nul  besoin  des  grandeurs  charnelles  ou  spirituelles." 1 
Nevertheless,  though  great  in  his  faculties,  and  great  in 
the  end  for  which  he  was  made,  man  lives  at  present  a 
life  of  misery  and  exile  "  like  a  dispossessed  monarch." 
The  very  proof  of  his  greatness  lies  in  his  misery,  for 
were  he  not  born  for  higher  things  he  would  not  be  so 
dissatisfied  with  lower.  He  thus  derives  a  sense  of 
elevation  even  from  that  very  sadness  ;  at  any  rate 
he  knows  that  he  is  wretched,  and  that  he  knows  it, 
is  evidence  of  the  superiority  of  his  nature.  The 
chapter  of  fragments  upon  the  "  Grandeur  et  misere 
de  rhomme"  concludes  with  the  words,  "Let  man 
estimate  himself  at  his  true  value,  honour  himself  in 
his  capacities,  despise  himself  in  his  neglect  of  those 
capacities." 

1  Pens&s  de  Pascal.     Ed.  Faugere,  vol.  ii.  pp.  90,  330. 


a  Progressive  Revelation.  23  i 

This  idea  of  the  greatness  of  man  has  thus  become 
a  part  of  modern  philosophy,  and  we  see  that  the  idea 
has  a  deep  philosophical  basis  in  Pascal's  mind.  Yet 
Pascal's  thought  is  only  Scripture  put  into  a  philoso- 
phical shape,  and  we  have  the  whole  idea  of  the  "  gran- 
deur de  Thomrne  "  in  one  text — "  What  is  a  man  pro- 
fited, if  he  shall  gain  the  whole  world,  and  lose  his  own 
soul  ?  or  what  shall  a  man  give  in  exchange  for  his 
soul  ? " *  And  thus  it  is  that  some  minds  cast  in  a 
philosophical  mould,  and  partially  disabled  for  seeing 
truth  except  in  that  shape — rendered  somewhat  callous 
too  to  the  deep  sense  of  Scripture  by  familiarity  with 
the  bare  letter — are  introduced  to  Scripture  first 
through  Pascal.  He  translates  the  Bible  into  the 
language  of  philosophy.  Then,  when  they  turn  to 
Scripture  again,  they  recognise  the  fount  of  Pascal, 
the  type  and  original  of  his  great  thoughts.  The  in- 
spired page  then  assumes  new  life  and  freshness  in 
their  eyes,  and  the  triumph  which  his  sharp  weapons 
gave  to  the  honest  conscience  over  the  hypocritical  and 
carnal,  is  renewed  more  vividly  upon  the  field  of  Scrip- 
ture— more  vividly,  because  the  most  beautiful  and 
keenest  philosophical  truths  derived  from  Scripture, 
are  not  equal  to  the  plenary  life,  strength,  and  darted 
thoughts  of  the  original. 

That  the  modern  world,  however, — its  govern- 
ments, philosophy,  literature, — should  have  been  formed 
so  largely  as  it  has  upon  one  Scriptural  idea,  is  not  so 
remarkable,  perhaps,  as  another  thing,  viz.  that  an 
immense  body  of  infidel  literature  and  philosophy  has 

1  Matt.  xvi.  26. 


232  The  End  the  Test  of 

been  formed  upon  this  same  idea.  It  is  indeed  an 
extraordinary  anomaly,  that  a  truth  for  which  we  are 
indebted  to  Scripture  alone  has  become  the  very 
watchword  of  infidelity,  and  that  the  enthusiasts  of 
unbelief,  its  poets,  dreamers,  and  political  agitators, 
should  have  gone  mad  upon  an  idea  which  is  histori- 
cally the  gift  of  Kevelation  to  mankind — the  greatness 
of  man  as  such.  It  has  been  the  special  cry  of  the 
revolutionist,  that  it  is  not  as  a  king,  as  a  noble,  as  a 
star  of  refined  life,  even  as  a  cultivated  and  educated 
person  only,  that  man  is  great ;  that  he  is  great  in 
himself;  that  every  man  has  in  him  the  dignity  and 
excellence  of  human  nature,  and  is  an  independent 
being,  and  has  inalienable  rights ;  that  every  man  has 
it  in  him  to  be  "  crowned  King  of  Life."  The  mind 
of  the  infidel  poet  has  kindled  at  this  truth  : — 

"  Yon  sun, 

Lights  it  the  great  alone  1    Yon  silver  beams, 
Sleep  they  less  sweetly  on  the  cottage  thatch 
Than  on  the  dome  of  kings  1     Is  mother  earth 
A  step-dame  to  her  numerous  sons,  who  earn 
Her  unshared  gifts  with  unremitting  toil  ? " : 

"  Yet  every  heart  contains  perfection's  germ : 
The  wisest  of  the  sages  of  the  earth, 
That  ever  from  the  stores  of  reason  drew 
Science  and  truth,  and  virtue's  dreadless  tone, 
Were  but  a  weak  and  inexperienced  boy, 
Proud,  sensual,  unimpassioned,  unimbued 
With  pure  desire  and  universal  love, 
Compared  to  that  high  being,  of  cloudless  brain, 
Untainted  passion,  elevated  will, 

1  Shelley's  Queen  Mob. 


a  Progressive  Revelation.  233 

Which  death  (who  even  would  linger  long  in  awe 
Within  his  noble  presence,  and  beneath 
His  changeless  eyebeam)  might  alone  subdue. 
Him,  every  slave  now  dragging  through  the  filth 
Of  some  corrupted  city  his  sad  life, 
Pining  with  famine,  swoln  with  luxury, 
Blunting  the  keenness  of  his  spiritual  sense, 
With  narrow  schemings  and  unworthy  cares, 
Or  madly  rushing  through  all  violent  crime, 
To  move  the  deep  stagnation  of  his  soul, — 
Might  imitate  and  equal."  ] 

Had  the  poet  been  asked  whence  he  got  this  idea 
of  man,  this  sense  of  the  dignity  of  every  man,  of  how 
much  there  was  in  him,  and  what  was  due  to  him,  he 
could  not  have  pointed  to  a  single  ancient  philosopher 
as  his  teacher.  The  ancient  world  had  no  such  idea ; 
and  had  such  a  notion  been  suggested  to  one  of  its 
luminaries,  he  would  have  scouted  it  as  visionary  and 
fantastic.  The  poet  has  got  this  idea  out  of  the  Bible, 
however  reluctant  he  might  be  to  own  it.  It  does  not 
exist  elsewhere,  but  only  in  revelation  and  the  deri- 
vatives from  revelation.  This  is  a  matter  of  fact.  We 
know  the  history  of  this  idea  as  we  know  the  history 
of  a  scientific  idea,  of  a  discovery  or  invention.  The 
poet,  then,  may  denounce  revelation,  but  he  uses  it.  It 
has  taught  him,  it  has  inspired  him.  It  has  imparted 
to  him  that  conception  which  is  the  stimulus  to  his 
powers,  and  around  which  all  the  treasures  of  his 
exuberant  fancy  collect.  And  indeed,  though  cut 
away  from  its  root,  severed  from  the  parent  stock  of 
truth,  and  exiled,  this  great  idea  still  retains  the  traces 

1  Queen  Mab. 


234  The  End  the  Test  of 

of  its  birth.  It  is  a  noble  and  an  inspiring  thought, 
but  at  the  same  time  it  is  an  anarchical  one.  It  swells 
with  tempestuous  pride  and  wilfulness,  in  the  place  of 
that  resignation  which  tempers  its  strength  and  vigour 
upon  its  own  natural  ground.  Yet  it  is  instructive 
to  see  how  full  the  world  has  become  of  this  idea 
of  humanity  when  once  disclosed ;  how  it  exults 
in  it,  and  cannot  contain  itself.  As  soon  as  the 
truth  is  caught,  it  is  taken  up  and  absorbed  into  the 
vortex  of  human  speculation  and  passion.  It  is 
refracted  through  a  thousand  mediums,  and  but  too 
often  glares  with  a  sinister  and  distorted  light,  in- 
furiating and  not  elevating  the  mass  ;  but  still,  how- 
ever coloured  by  human  thought,  it  has  taken  posses- 
sion of  the  world,  and  divides  ancient  from  modern 
society  by  an  unsurpassable  boundary. 

So  large  has  been  the  fruit  which  that  first  truth 
of  revelation,  the  communion  of  man  with  God,  has 
borne,  in  affecting  the  relation  of  man  to  man,  and  in 
improving  his  civil  interests.  And  thus,  though  in 
certain  particular  Divine  interpositions  in  the  Old 
Testament  history,  God  accommodated  His  dealings  to 
a  defective  and  debased  idea  of  human  individuality, 
(as  when  He  commanded  the  family  or  nation  to  be 
included  in  the  same  punishment  with  its  guilty  head), 
He  was  at  the  very  time,  in  the  great  foundation  of 
His  revelation,  educating  man  in  the  highest  truth 
upon  this  very  subject;  and  implanting  in  him  that 
true  idea  of  himself  which  was  destined  to  produce 
the  whole  edifice  of  modern  society  and  of  civil  justice. 
In  human  affairs  this  is  considered  to  be  the  highest 


a  Progressive  Revelation.  235 

wisdom : — to  accommodate  instruction  for  the  occa- 
sion, to  the  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  learner,  at 
the  same  time  that  you  implant  a  seed  of  more  perfect 
knowledge.  And  the  same  rule  applies  to  the  Divine 
dispensations.  While  the  old  type  of  justice  was 
being  executed,  the  new  work  of  man's  education  was 
being  carried  out.  A  law  was  given  and  a  discipline 
was  laid  down  for  this  purpose.  The  Law  contained 
that  very  truth  of  the  relationship  of  man  to  the  one 
true  God  which  was  ultimately  to  raise  him ;  and  this 
truth  was  the  sum  and  substance  of  the  Law.  The 
Law  then  contained  the  source  and  secret  of  man's 
future  elevation. 

But  before  the  Law  had  worked  its  end  it  had  in 
the  meantime  to  be  maintained  and  enforced.  The 
Jewish  people  chafed  under  the  yoke.  The  history  of 
the  nation  throughout  shows  that  the  Law  was  really 
above  the  great  mass,  that  it  contained  principles  too 
sublime  for  them.  It  is  a  history  of  long  lapses  of  the 
main  body  of  the  people  into  idolatry,  into  which  they 
fell  because  they  could  not  rise  to  the  idea  of  the 
communion  of  the  creature  with  his  Maker,  of  man 
with  the  Universal  Being ;  they  could  only  imagine 
relationship  to  inferior  invisible  beings,  or  gods  whom 
they  clothed  with  material  form.  The  downward 
tendency  to  idolatry  was  the  potent  and  formidable 
danger  which  kept  the  true  faith  and  the  true  concep- 
tion of  God  constantly  trembling  upon  the  verge  of 
utter  suppression,  and  with  difficulty  just  emerging 
above  the  flood  of  corruption :  while  it  was  essential 
to  the  Divine  purposes  that  that  faith  should  stand, 


236  The  End  the  Test  of 

and  stand  not  only  as  the  faith  of  some  individuals 
but  as  the  national  faith.  The  nation,  therefore,  was 
terrified  into  a  formal  obedience  by  every  scourge 
that  the  Divine  wrath  could  employ,  and  every  form 
of  wholesale  punishment,  which  included  families  in 
the  guilt  of  fathers,  subjects  in  the  guilt  of  their 
kings.  But  the  purpose  of  such  judgments  was  to 
subjugate  man  to  that  law  which  was  ultimately  to 
purify  and  elevate  him,  and  to  keep  in  existence  the 
precious  seed  of  the  future  enlightenment  of  the  world. 
There  was  a  scheme,  a  purpose,  an  end  in  view,  in  the 
whole  terrific  preparatory  discipline  of  the  Law.  It 
was  administered  in  order  to  bow  the  stubborn  neck 
of  man,  and  keep  it  from  slipping  from  under  the 
yoke.  Under  the  Law  he  must,  in  spite  of  himself, 
improve ;  once  severed  from  it  he  was  a  lost  being. 
The  enforcement  of  the  Law  was  thus  the  task  of  one 
dispensation,  though  its  fruits  were  shown  under 
another. 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  a  progressive  revelation — 
if  the  idea  of  such  a  revelation  is  once  admitted — 
must  be  judged  by  its  end  and  not  by  its  beginning. 
"We  see  before  us  a  legislative  structure,  straight  from 
the  hands  of  the  original  Lawgiver,  containing  a  body 
of  ancient  rules  and  precepts,  obviously  partaking  of 
the  spirit  of  the  age  in  which  they  came  out,  and  re- 
flecting an  early  moral  standard.  We  then  call  this 
the  morality  of  the  Old  Testament  dispensation.  But 
according  to  any  rule  of  judging  in  such  cases,  the 
morality  of  a  progressive  dispensation  is  not  the 
morality  with  which  it  starts,  but  that  with  which  it 


a  Progressive  Revelation.  237 

concludes.  The  test  is  not  the  commencement  but 
the  result.  Whatever  it  is  in  which  the  system  results, 
and  which  by  its  own  natural  course  it  reaches,  that 
is  the  standard  of  the  dispensation.  Because  from  the 
final  result  we  infer  the  intention,  and  the  intention 
makes  the  morality  of  the  dispensation.  By  the 
gradual  creation  of  a  perfect  standard,  the  will  of 
the  dispensation  from  the  first  is  declared  to  have 
been  in  favour  of  it.  There  is  a  side,  indeed,  on 
which,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  it  exhibits  a  defec- 
tive morality,  because  there  is  a  side  on  which  it  is 
stationary.  The  litera  scripta  manet ;  the  written 
code  necessarily  always  continues  to  give  the  original 
precepts  as  they  stood,  and  if  any  of  these  are  cast  in 
the  rude  spirit  of  the  early  ages  of  the  dispensation,  its 
rude  and  imperfect  moral  standard  is  so  far  stereotyped. 
Upon  the  side  of  the  external  written  letter  it  is  rude 
and  imperfect.  On  this  side  it  continues  for  ever, 
in  the  nature  of  the  case,  to  point  backward  for  its, 
moral  criterion ;  but  the  living  teacher,  the  guiding 
spirit  in  the  system,  from  the  first,  points  forward, 
and  is  throughout  of  that  moral  character  which 
it  will  ultimately  establish.  This  active  essence  of 
the  dispensation  is  throughout  in  sympathy  with 
its  latest  production.  Do  not  judge  it  then,  by 
the  stationary  letter,  but  by  the  principle  of  pro- 
gress which  is  evidently  rooted  and  inherent  in  it; 
by  that  inner  movement,  by  that  dominating  and 
persevering  tendency,  which  is  the  vital  spirit  of  it, 
and  which  finally  overcomes  the  temporary  and  pass- 
ing elements. 


238  The  End  the  Test  of 

Whether  the  imperfect  morality  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment dispensation  is  a  correct  expression  or  not, 
depends  in  short  upon  what  you  mean  by  the  dis- 
pensation. If  you  mean  the  document  of  the  dispen- 
sation, it  is  imperfect  morality ;  if  you  mean  the 
design  in  the  dispensation,  the  morality  of  that  design 
is  Christian  morality.  Taking  the  highest  sample  of 
the  nation  as  the  proper  representative  of  it,  regarded 
as  the  pupil  of  a  Divine  guidance,  we  see  the  Jewish 
people,  under  the  teaching  of  their  dispensation,  so 
advanced  in  course  of  ages  in  the  moral  faculty,  that 
they  at  length  embrace  and  grasp  the  full  Christian 
morals ;  that  they  preach  this  moral  standard  through- 
out the  world ;  and  that  it  thus  becomes  ultimately 
the  standard  of  the  whole  of  civilised  mankind. 
When  you  talk  then  of  the  imperfect  and  mistaken 
morality  of  the  Old  Testament  dispensation,  ask 
yourself,  to  begin  with,  what  you  mean,  and  what 
you  intend  to  assert  by  that  expression.  Do  you 
mean  to  say  that  the  written  law  was  imperfect? 
If  that  is  all,  you  state  what  is  simply  a  fact ; 
but  this  fact  does  not  touch  the  morality  of  the 
Lawgiver ;  because  He  is  abundantly  fortified  by 
the  defence  that  He  could  give  no  higher  at  the 
time  to  an  unenlightened  people.  Do  you  mean 
to  assert  that  the  scope  and  design  was  imper- 
fectly moral  ?  In  that  case  you  are  contradicted  by 
the  whole  course  of  history.  Look  at  the  Jewish 
Dispensation  as  being  a  working  system,  look  at  it  as 
an  actual  instructor  at  work  for  ages  upon  the  nation 
under  it.  How  does  its  work  turn  out?  How  is 


a  Progressive  Revelation.  239 

the  pupil  brought  up  ?  What  is  the  moral  standard 
in  which  this  course  of  education  issues  ?  That 
question  has  been  just  now  answered,  and  that 
question  decides  the  scope  of  the  dispensation.  The 
imperfect  standard  of  the  original  code  and  nation 
can  only  be  made  a  charge  by  a  confusion  of  mind. 
You  blame  in  the  Old  Testament  dispensation,  i.e.,  in 
its  Author,  what  ?  The  moral  standard  he  permits  ? 
It  is  the  highest  man  can  then  receive.  The  moral 
standard  he  desires?  He  desires  a  perfect  moral 
standard,  and  ultimately  establishes  it.  Thus,  be- 
tween the  two  goals  of  the  dispensation,  its  com- 
mencement and  its  end,  your  charge  falls  to  the 
ground,  or  strikes  the  air.  You  bring  out  with 
all  your  power  the  actual  moral  condition  of  the 
Jewish  nation,  how  rude  it  was;  how  coarse,  how 
blind  and  indiscriminating  its  moral  perception  : 
and  you  think  the  facts  of  themselves  condemn 
the  revelation ;  that  the  low  condition  of  the  people 
condemns  the  Lawgiver;  but  the  Lawgiver  is  not 
responsible  for  the  material  he  has  to  work  upon, 
the  system  is  not  to  blame  for  the  rudeness  of  the 
people  it  has  to  correct.  ;The  material  of  accusa- 
tion is  thus  made  by  the  mental  confusion  of  the 
accuser,  and  at  the  first  clear  sight  vanishes  into 
air.  Eather  the  material  of  accusation  becomes 
itself  evidence  of  the  Divine  power  in  the  sys- 
tem, and  the  guarantee  to  its  authority.  You 
expatiate  upon  the  actual  crudities  of  the  Jewish 
morality,  as  if  the  dispensation  were  accountable  for 
them ;  but  if  it  in  fact  overcomes  them,  all  the  rough- 


240  The  End  the  Test  of 

ness  of  the  material  which  it  conquers  only  redounds 
to  its  glory. 

"  But/'  it  will  be  said,  "  the  crude  and  imperfect 
nature  of  Jewish  morals  is  a  plain  fact  of  Scripture 
history  itself,  while  this  running  design  and  inner 
current  of  the  dispensation  is  only  an  interpretation 
put  upon  Jewish  history  by  theologians.  It  is  true, 
the  Jewish  nation  gradually  grew  out  of  a  rude  and 
barbarous  state,  and  attained  to  a  certain  civilisation ; 
and  with  that  civilisation  came  a  finer  moral  standard ; 
but  this  was  not  the  result  of  the  dispensation  they 
were  under,  but  due  only  to  the  natural  growth  and 
expansion  of  reason.  The  moral  standard  of  the  dis- 
pensation is  before  us  in  black  and  white,  and  that 
was  a  very  defective  one,  and  sanctioned  'vengeance 
and  bloodshed  on  a  large  scale ;  the  people,  or  the 
higher  minds  among  them,  at  last  outgrew  this  moral 
standard  by  the  force  of  reason.  This  is  the  natural 
and  rational  account  of  the  progress  of  the  Jewish 
nation,  and  of  the  high  morality  which  at  last  issued 
out  of  that  nation.  But  to  attribute  this  result  to 
the  inner  working  of  a  dispensation  whose  written 
code  was  marked  by  plain  defects  and  shortcomings, 
is  mere  speculation,  and  by  no  means  probable  specu- 
lation." 

To  this  the  answer  is,  that  other  nations  of  the 
world,  beside  the  Jewish,  began  with  an  imperfect  and 
crude  moral  standard;  but,  of  all  these  nations  we 
observe  that,  as  they  began  so  they  ended.  Hindu 
law,  Eoman  law,  Greek  codes  of  law,  all  led  their 
respective  communities  a  certain  way  in  morals,  but 


a  Progressive  Revelation.  241 

they  all  stopped  short  of  any  true  development  in 
morals.  They  never  became  active  inspiring  teachers 
of  the  people  under  them, — seeds  of  enlightenment 
and  advancement.  Look  at  Spartan  law ;  has  it  the 
slightest  spring  or  elasticity  in  it  ?  or  has  it  anything 
approaching  to  a  principle  of  growth  in  it  ?  It  per- 
forms a  certain  set  of  motions  like  an  automaton ;  its 
whole  power  is  restricted  within  a  certain  area  of 
public  military  virtue,  and  it  has  no  inward  self-moving 
power  by  which  it  can  transcend  its  original  limits. 
This  is  perhaps  an  extreme  case.  But  Eoman  law,  as 
a  moral  law,  works  in  chains ;  it  cannot  liberate  itself 
from  its  own  inflexible  adherence  to  the  type  of  slavery, 
and  from  those  barbarous  definitions  of  personal  rights 
which  left  no  station  but  a  servile  one  to  wife  or  son ; 
thus  degrading  society  at  its  fountainhead  of  family 
life.  The  Eoman  law  remained  essentially  savage 
till  Christianity  released  it  and  set  it .  free  from  its 
bonds.  It  could  not  free  itself;  it  could  not  make 
the  wife  a  free  woman  and  at  the  same  time  give 
her  the  sanctity  of  marriage,  but  could  only  con- 
fer freedom  on  her  at  the  cost  of  license,  by  the 
exchange  of  marriage  for  a  contract  which  let  in  in- 
definite divorce.  Hindu  law  has  not  raised  itself.  In 
other  nations,  then,  the  ideas  of  justice,  benevolence, 
purity,  stay  at  an  incipient  stage,  and  never  become 
more  than  half  ideas;  in  the  Jewish  alone  is  there 
moral  progress, — an  advance,  which  begins  and  goes 
steadily  on  unchecked,  till  it  reaches  the  New  or 
Christian  Law.  In  the  Jewish  nation  alone  the  Law 
acts  not  only  as  a  document,  but  as  a  guiding  prin- 


242  The  End  the  Test  of 

ciple  in  the  nation.  There  it  is  a  light,  a  teacher;  it 
does  not  abide  within  its  letter  only,  but  conies  out  in 
the  shape  of  comment  or  interpretation  to  suggest  and 
inspire.  It  is  accompanied  and  guarded  by  the  great 
Prophetic  order,  which  carries  on,  in  conjunction  with 
the  Law  and  in  check  upon  it,  a  standing  guidance  and 
teaching.  There  is  a  moral  ^element  in  the  dispen- 
sation which  has  an  intrinsic  and  overruling  force  of 
its  own,  a  free  unstunted  growth,  by  which  it  arrives 
at  its  completion.  V 

But  exception  may  be  taken,  last  of  all,  to  the 
fundamental  assumption  upon  which  this  whole  argu- 
ment has  been  based ; — upon  the  very  idea,  to  begin 
with,  of  a  progressive  revelation.  "  Natural  reason,"  it 
may  be  said,  "  is,  as  everybody  admits,  and  as  we  know 
by  experience,  slow  and  gradual  in  its  processes,  it 
requires  time  for  developing  and  maturing  itself,  and 
it  only  gains  possession  of  truths  after  a  succession  of 
trials  and  delays ;  but  why  should  a  Divine  revelation 
be  subject  to  such  conditions  as  these  ?  Is  not  a  reve- 
lation given  for  the  very  purpose  of  supplying  the 
deficiencies  of  reason  ?  But  if  so,  why,  when  it  is 
given,  does  it  exhibit  these  very  deficiencies  ?  If  reve- 
lation is  as  slow  and  dilatory  as  reason,  is  it  indeed 
revelation  at  all,  or  is  it  simply  reason  operating  all 
the  time  ?  For  what  can  be  the  meaning  of  the 
Divine  Being  instituting  an  exception  to  His  ordinary 
providence,  if  the  exception  after  all  follows  the  pattern 
of  the  rule  ?  what  reason  can  there  be  why  an  Omni- 
potent Being  should  not  communicate  what  He  has  to 
communicate  summarily,  and  by  one  act?  There  is 


a  Progressive  Revelation.  243 

that  in  man,  by  Ms  fundamental  constitution,  to  which 
a  truth  can  be  imparted ;  his  reason  is  in  him  by 
nature.  "Why  is  not  a  truth,  which  is  capable  of  being 
apprehended,  not  imparted  to  that  reason  at  once  ? 
And  are  not  such  truths  as  these  capable  of  being 
apprehended  immediately  ? — say  the  Christian  law  of 
marriage,  that  a  man  should  have  but  one  wife ; — Chris- 
tian justice,  that  a  man  should  be  punished  only  for 
his  own  fault.  These  truths  are  perfectly  plain  truths 
if  they  are  truths  at  all ;  and  revelation  is  able  to  give 
man  the  proper  guarantee  that  they  are  truths ;  and 
if  he  knows  them  to  be  such,  what  has  man  to  do 
but  to  set  about  practising  them  ?  Why  then  should 
God  not  reveal  what  He  has  to  reveal  at  once  ?  Why 
should  He  purposely  deal  out  His  instruction  piece- 
meal, and  postpone  what  He  can  give  immediately,  and 
let  a  special  revelation  stand  over  centuries,  which  could 
have  been  given  at  the  commencement  ?  A  progres- 
sive revelation  is  itself  an  inconsistent  transaction,  and 
the  very  idea  of  it  cannot  be  admitted.  For  if  there 
is  power  to  possess  man  with  a  certain  moral  truth 
now,  at  this  moment,  by  a  summary  act  of  Divine 
grace,  all  ground  why  the  knowledge  should,  be  put  off 
is  gone,  and  you  are  left  without  a  reason  to  account 
for  the  delay." 

This,  then,  is  the  objection  raised.  But  here  an 
argument  opens  upon  us,  founded  on  the  nature  of 
man  as  God  created  him,  which  necessitates  the  use 
of  language  imposed  upon  us  by  our  ignorance.  When, 
then,  we  speak  of  the  omnipotence  of  God,  we  do  not 
mean  that  He  can  simply  and  nakedly  do  anything  that 


244  The  End  the  Test  of 

can  be  stated  in  words.  It  is  an  attribute  with  con- 
ditions ;  I  mean  that  is  the  mode  in  which  we  express 
it  in  language.  God  can  no  more  force  an  immediate 
moral  enlightenment  upon  an  existing  age,  and  antedate 
a  high  moral  standard  by  two  thousand  years,  than  He 
can  instantaneously  impart  a  particular  character  to  an 
individual.  He  has  endowed  man  with  intellectual 
faculties  of  a  certain  kind,  which  move  in  a  certain 
way,  and  with  a  gradual  progressive  motion  requiring 
time.  He  cannot  impart  to  it  a  truth  in  such  a  way 
as  contradicts  that  institution  of  the  understanding, 
and  communicate  in  a  moment  that  which,  by  the  laws 
of  the  being's  nature,  can  be  only  received  slowly  and 
by  degrees.  The  natural  motion  of  the  human  under- 
standing is  by  steps  and  stages ;  after  one  effort  it  is 
weary,  sinks  back  exhausted,  and  cannot  go  farther  just 
then,  but  rests  :  and  there  is  a  pause  in  the  progress 
until  another  impulse  comes,  and  another  step  is 
made ;  and  thus  the  work  is  accomplished  gradually, 
and  some  large  and  complete  truth  is  at  last  arrived 
at.  To  suppose  the  Deity,  then,  imparting  in  a 
moment  some  ultimate  truth  which  experience  shows 
requires  time  for  men  to  embrace,  is  to  suppose 
Him  imparting  the  truth  in  a  way  which  contra- 
dicts those  very  laws  which  He  has  Himself  laid 
down  in  the  constitution  of  the  being  with  whom 
He  is  dealing. 

The  understanding  of  man,  again,  moves  by  the 
action  of  the  will ;  it  cannot  be  raised  to  the  compre- 
hension of  any  great  truth  without  a  succession  of  acts 
of  attention,  and  the  will  must  keep  up  attention. 


a  Progressive  Revelation.  245 

The  will  and  the  understanding,  then,  cannot  be  sepa- 
rated in  the  advancement  of  the  human  mind  in  truth, 
and  in  the  progress  of  revelation.  But  can  the  Divine 
power  control  the  human  will  in  its  collective  aspect 
any  more  than  it  can  in  its  individual?  Can  it 
dictate  the  mode  of  taking  in  a  revelation,  any  more 
than  it  can  secure  individual  conduct  ?  The  question 
respecting  the  immediate  comprehension  and  accept- 
ance of  a  revelation  is  very  much  analogous  to  the 
question  of  human  action  and  its  subjection  to  the 
Divine  power ;  the  possibilities  in  conducting  revela- 
tion are  much  akin  to  the  possibilities  of  dictation  to 
the  human  will.  The  whole  question  comes  in,  of  the 
relations  of  the  Divine  power  to  the  human  will. 

Here,  then,  we  are  launched  upon  a  fundamental 
difficulty.  The  will  of  the  human  race  influences  the 
understanding  of  the  human  race  in  its  mode  of  taking 
in  a  revelation.  A  revelation  is  accepted  readily 
when  it  concurs  with  men's  wishes,  but  the  under- 
standing, when  separated  from  the  inclination,  stops 
short,  and  refuses  to  exert  itself.  Can  the  fact,  then, 
that  it  is  a  revelation  reverse  this  slowness  in  the 
understanding  ? — this  slowness  which  is  produced  by 
want  of  inclination  ?  There  is  no  more  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  it  can  in  the  human  race  at  large  than 
that  it  can  in  an  individual :  that  the  mind  of  the 
race  can  be  enlightened  by  an  instantaneous  act  of 
Divine  omnipotence,  than  the  mind  of  an  individual 
can  be.  Nor  is  there  any  more  reason  to  suppose  that 
an  individual's  mind  can  be  enlightened  all  at  once  by 
an  act  of  revelation,  than  that  a  man's  conduct  can  be 


246  The  End  the  Test  of 

made  good  all  at  once.  The  Divine  power  can  assist 
the  individual ;  and  yet  the  individual  has  a  will  that 
can  resist  the  Divine  power,  astounding  as  the  asser- 
tion may  appear.  And  the  human  race  has  collectively 
the  same  will,  and  can  resist  the  progress  of  revelation 
within  the  collective  human  mind,  so  as  to  make  it 
a  gradual  instead  of  an  instantaneous  work,  and  will 
do  so  if  it  act  naturally.  "We  are  accustomed  to  the 
idea  of  a  limit  to  the  Divine  power  in  dealing  with 
one  individual  man ; — that  God  cannot  force  an  indi- 
vidual to  do  good  acts  against  his  will,  but  that  his 
will  mysteriously,  yet  still  actually  or  in  fact,  has  a 
power  of  resisting  the  Divine  will ;  but  we  do  not  think 
of  society  resisting  God ;  the  race  resisting  Him.  Yet 
the  same  limitation  which  attaches  to  the  Divine  omni- 
potence dealing  with  one  man,  applies  also  to  the  same 
attribute  in  dealing  with  mankind  collectively:  it 
applies  to  the  advancement  of  the  human  race,  morally 
and  intellectually,  and  to  Divine  revelation  as  the 
means  of  such  advancement,  just  as  much  as  it  applies 
to  one  man,  and  to  ordinary  grace  as  an  influencer. 
This  instantaneous  enlightenment  of  mankind  by  reve- 
lation is  a  wild  notion ;  it  is  a  method  of  dealing  with 
man  as  a  mass,  which  is  utterly  at  variance  with  the 
conditions  which  attach  to  the  Divine  omnipotence  in 
dealing  with  man  as  an  individual.  Is  there  in  one 
individual  an  inherent  vis  inertice,  a  stubbornness 
which  is  capable  of  effectively  withstanding  the  Divine 
influence  and  desire  for  his  good ;  and  even  if  it  yield 
finally,  can  first  withstand  it  from  time  to  time,  thus 
necessitating  successive  applications  of  the  Divine 


a  Progressive  Revelation.  247 

moving  power?  The  same  principle  applies  to  the 
Divine  action  upon  the  race.  This  stubbornness  and  vis 
inertice  exists  in  the  race ;  nor  is  collective  humanity 
by  its  own  inherent  constitution  capable  of  being 
raised  to  such  a  level  of  truth  by  an  instantaneous 
leap,  as  it  can  be  made  to  attain  by  a  long  dis- 
pensation. 

The  difficulty  of  a  slow  and  progressive  revelation, 
as  being  inconsistent  with  the  Divine  omnipotence,  is 
thus  only  the  fundamental  difficulty  of  the  Divine 
power  and  man's  free  will.  The  Divine  power  acts  in 
a  man's  conversion,  but  it  is  quite  consistent  with  that 
power  acting,  that  it  should  act  gradually,  and  only  be 
able  to  act  gradually.  In  the  same  way,  there  is 
nothing  unreasonable  in  the  idea  and  notion  that  the 
human  race  can  be  elevated  and  improved  by  a  Divine 
dispensation,  and  yet  that  that  Divine  dispensation  may 
be  only  able  to  improve  and  elevate  it  gradually.  The 
advance  and  progress  may  still  be  proved  to  have  been 
owing  to  that  dispensation,  because  it  may  appear  that 
that  result  has  only  in  fact  been  ultimately  attained  in 
conjunction  with  it. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  that  which  the  Deity 
communicates  with,  when  He  makes  a  revelation  to 
man,  is  his  reason;  and  that  a  revelation  does  not 
profess  to  change  the  reason  of  man,  or  to  substitute 
one  kind  of  reason  for  another  kind,  when  it  com- 
municates fresh  truth.  It  does  not  profess  to  alter  the 
fundamental  mode  of  thought  in  man,  or  the  pace 
which  is  natural  to  the  operations  of  reason. 

Kevelation,  in  imparting  what  it  does  impart  to  man, 


248  The  End  the  Test  of 

takes  reason  as  it  finds  it,  with  all  its  imperfections,  with 
its  slow  reception  of  whatever  is  new,  and  its  hesitation 
and  irregularity.  Eevelation  does  not,  with  the  new 
truth  it  gives,  create  a  new  instrument  for  receiving 
that  truth.  That  which  is  imparted  is  new  indeed,  but 
that  which  receives  what  is  imparted  is  the  natural 
understanding  of  man,  which  specially  requires  time. 
That  is  to  say,  when  a  revelation  is  given  to  man,  it  is 
man  to  whom  it  is  given  ;  and  he  gets  out  of  it  what  it 
contains  according  to  the  natural  constitution  of  his 
mind.  Moral  action  goes  with  intellectual.  But  God, 
so  to  speak,  cannot  force  moral  action  upon  him ;  and 
we  find  that  the  same  obstruction  which  there  is  to  the 
Divine  power  in  the  case  of  an  individual  and  his  im- 
provement, exists  also  in  the  case  of  the  race  and  its 
improvement ;  that  the  same  obstruction  which  is  in 
the  way  of  conversion  immediately,  exists  in  the  way 
of  enlightenment  by  revelation  immediately.  Free 
will  is  equally  at  the  bottom  of  the  slowness  with 
which  both  processes  take  place;  that  process  by 
which  truths  are  seen  and  come  to  light,  and  that  by 
which  moral  changes  take  place. 

But  it  may  be  objected,  when  we  say  that  revela- 
tion cannot  produce  its  effect  instantaneously,  because 
God  has  created  the  reason  of  man  with  certain  habits 
and  a  certain  progress  and  pace  of  its  own,  which 
resist  quicker  enlightenment,  that  the  very  principle 
of  miracles  is  that  God  does  produce  effects  which  are 
contrary  to  the  institution  of  certain  laws  which  He 
has  established  in  the  world  for  ordinary  use.  That, 
therefore,  if  there  ever  is  such  a  thing  as  a  miracle, 


a  Progressive  Revelation.  249 

such  a  thing  might  be  expected  to  take  place  in  the 
case  of  the  action  of  a  revelation ;  and  that  revelation 
must  be  able  to  produce,  and  if  it  can  should  produce,  its 
effect  upon  mankind  instantaneously.  But  it  must  be 
remembered  that  it  is  a  different  thing, — a  contradic- 
tion to  a  physical  law,  and  a  contradiction  to  the  real 
will  of  a  real  being.  A  physical  law  has  nothing 
wherewith  to  resist  God,  Who  can  as  easily  make  or 
do  a  thing  in  another  way  than  that  of  law,  as  by  that 
law.  A  physical  law  is  as  nothing,  regarding  it  as 
preventing  God  from  acting  in  any  special  way.  If 
this  law  acts  it  acts ;  but  if  it  does  not  act,  some  other 
mode  does  for  the  occasion.  But  it  is  a  different  thing 
when  we  come  to  the  actual  wills  of  real  beings.  The 
will  of  man  is  admitted,  (with  that  reserve  which,  as 
ignorant  creatures,  we  must  fall  back  upon  in  such 
mysterious  statements,)  as  that  which  has  the  power 
of  resisting  the  will  of  God.  Free  will  is  claimed  as  a 
real  attribute  of  man, — power  to  do  or  not  to  do.  The 
will  can  resist  God's  will,  and  can  stop  the  progress 
of  a  work  of  God.  Is  this  an  intricate  view  of  Divine 
dealings,  and  does  putting  Divine  power  under  such 
checks  and  conditions  as  a  progressive  revelation  implies, 
seem  radically  to  interfere  with  the  attribute  ?  This 
is  an  objection  which,  if  it  be  of  any  force  at  all,  does 
not  apply  to  a  progressive  revelation  specially ;  it 
applies  to  the  whole  idea  of  a  Deity,  as  compatible 
with  human  free  will.  Human  free  will  is  an  internal 
modification  of  the  idea  of  God,  which  is  only  pre- 
vented from  interfering  injuriously  with  the  idea,  by 
the  intervention  of  our  resort  to  ignorance.  As 


250  The  End  the  Test  of 

ignorant  creatures  we  are  not  entitled  to  say  that 
apparent  limitations  of  the  Divine  power  are  real  ones, 
because  they  may  be  only  such  as  the  mathematical 
consistency  of  truth  itself  imposes;  that  is  only 
verbal  restrictions  upon  power,  and  not  real  ones.  To 
the  intellectual  conception,  however,  the  idea  of  God 
is  thus  an  idea  with  checks  and  conditions  in  it ;  and 
those  who  would  simplify  it  absolutely,  would  establish 
an  idol  and  not  a  God.  If  we  invent  an  idol,  all  is 
plain  enough  ;  there  are  no  enigmas  in  an  idol ;  there 
are  no  reasons  why  individuals  cannot  be  converted  in 
an  instant,  and  why  the  human  race  cannot  be  enlight- 
ened in  an  instant  by  an  abstract  Omnipotence.  But 
if  we  suppose  the  Deity  to  be  the  Being  we  represent 
Him  in  our  sermons,  our  popular  treatises,  our  exhorta- 
tions, who  cannot  do  some  things,  and  cannot  change 
man  without  his  own  concurrence,  this  is  a  Deity  who 
cannot  give  enlightenment  or  implant  a  revelation  in 
man  by  an  instantaneous  act.  Nor  does  the  God  of 
the  Jewish  covenant  do  this.  Simply,  He  does  not  do 
what  God,  in  our  ordinary  common-sense  conception 
of  Him,  does  not  do. 

To  sum  up  the  argument,  I  explained  in  a  former 
Lecture  that  it  was  the  peculiarity  of  the  Jewish  dis- 
pensation that  it  was  both  present  and  prospective  in 
its  design ;  that  it  worked  for  a  future  end,  while  it 
provided  also  for  the  existing  wants  of  man. 

The  system  having  thus  a  double  aim,  it  is  obvious 
that  of  these  two  objects,  that  which  is  prior  and  takes 
the  first  place  in  the  intention  of  the  system  is  the 
end.  In  what  did  the  dispensation  actually  result  ? 


a  Progressive  Revelation.  251 

In  a  perfect  moral  standard.  Then  we  only  argue 
upon  ordinary  rules  of  evidence  when  we  say  that 
that  was  the  intention  of  the  dispensation,  and  that 
that  was  the  intention  even  while  its  morality  was 
actually  imperfect.  The  morality  of  the  Author  of 
the  dispensation  is  the  true  morality  of  the  dispensa- 
tion; the  final  morals  are  the  true  morals,  the  tempo- 
rary are  but  scaffolding ;  the  true  morals  are  con- 
tained in  the  end  and  in  the  whole. 

Popular  critics  of  the  morality  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment apply  the  coarsest  possible  arguments  to  this 
subject.  They  think  it  enough  to  point  to  a  rude 
penal  law,  to  a  barbarous  custom,  to  an  extirpating 
warfare,  and  it  at  once  follows  that  this  is  the  morality 
of  the  Bible ;  but  this  is  to  judge  the  sculptor  from 
the  broken  fragment  of  stone.  It  was  not  the  morality 
of  the  Bible  unless  it  was  the  morality  of  the  Bible  as 
a  whole,  and  the  whole  is  tested  by  the  end  and  not 
by  the  beginning.  Scripture  was  progressive :  it 
went  from  lower  stage  to  higher,  and  as  it  rose  from 
one  stage  to  another  it  blotted  out  the  commands  of 
an  inferior  standard  and  substituted  the  commands  of 
a  higher  standard.  This  was  the  nature  of  the  dis- 
pensation as  being  progressive ;  it  was  the  essential 
operation  of  the  Divine  government  as  it  acted  in 
that  period  of  the  world.  The  dispensation,  then, 
as  a  whole,  did  not  command  the  extermination 
of  the  Canaanites,  but  a  subordinate  step  did ; 
and  this  step  passed  from  use  and  sight  as  a 
higher  was  attained.  The  fact,  though  instruct- 
ive as  past  history,  became  obsolete,  and  was  left 


252  The  End  the  Test  of 

behind  as  a  present  lesson ;  and  the  dispensation 
in  its  own  nature  was  represented  by  its  end.  The 
very  lower  steps  led  to  the  end,  and  were  for  the 
sake  of  leading  to  it.  The  critic  adheres  to  a  class 
of  commands  which  existed  for  the  moment,  as  facts 
of  the  day;  but  the  turning  point  is  the  issue,  and 
the  whole  can  only  be  interpreted  by  the  event.  The 
morality  of  Scripture  is  the  morality  of  the  end  of 
Scripture  ;  it  is  the  last  standard  reached,  and  what 
everything  else  led  up  to. 

Nothing,  then,  can  be  cruder  and  more  rude  than 
to  identify  Scripture  with  the  action  of  the  day.  In 
the  eyes  of  some,  the  action  of  the  day  is  the  self- 
evident  morality  of  Scripture,  and  no  argument  is 
thought  necessary  ;  but  whatever  the  facts  may  be, 
it  is  a  fundamental  mistake  to  suppose  that  there 
is  any  conclusion  to  be  got  from  them,  except 
through  the  defile  of  an  argument.  In  assuming  a 
God  in  the  dispensation,  we  assume  a  presiding  mind 
and  intention ;  and  of  that  intention  not  the  imme- 
diate fact,  but  the  upshot  of  the  dispensation  is  the 
test.  We  say  the  upshot  is  worth  all  the  extraordi- 
nary and  apparently  lowering  accommodation,  the 
stooping  process,  and  humiliation  of  the  Divine  govern- 
ment. God  allowed,  during  all  those  ages,  rude  men 
to  think  of  Him  as  one  of  themselves,  acting  with  the 
rudest  and  dimmest  idea  of  justice.  But  He  conde- 
scended at  the  moment,  to  prevail  and  conquer  in 
the  end.  In  entering  into  and  accepting  their  con- 
fused ideas,  He  grappled  with  them.  Through  what 
a  chaos  of  mistakes  did  final  light  arise,  and  the  true 


a  Progressive  Revelation.  253 

idea  of  justice  make  its  way  in  the  world  !  And  God 
tolerated  the  mistakes,  and  allowed  His  commands  to 
go  forth  in  that  shape,  but  the  condescension  was 
worth  the  result.  It  is  the  result  alone  which  can 
explain  those  accommodations;  but  the  result  does 
explain  them;  and  bring  them  out  as  successful  Divine 
policy. 


THE    MANICH^ANS   AND   THE 
JEWISH    FATHERS. 

OT.  AUGUSTINE  is  perhaps  the  most  marvellous 
controversial  phenomenon  which  the  whole  history 
of  the  Church  from  first  to  last  presents.  One  great 
controversy  is  usually  enough  for  one  man ;  but  he 
conducted,  or  it  may  be  said  finished,  three ;  the 
Manichsean,  the  Pelagian,  and  the  Donatist.  But  it 
is  not  so  much  the  number  of  the  controversies  which 
he  conducted,  as  the  vigour  and  prolific  power  of  his 
pen  upon  each,  and  the  extraordinary  force  with 
which  he  stamped  his  own  statements  permanently 
upon  the  Church,  which  is  the  remarkable  fact.  The 
language  in  which  he  summed  up  the  Pelagian  con- 
troversy reigned  in  the  Church  and  dictated  her 
formulae  ;  and  after  moulding  the  schools  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  prescribed  the  Articles  of  our  own 
Church.  He  was  superlatively  fitted  for  fulfilling  this 
function,  as  well  by  his  defects  as  by  his  gifts  and 
merits.  Armed  with  superabundant  facility  of  ex- 
pression,— so  that  he  himself  observes  that  one  who 
had  written  so  much  must  have  a  good  deal  to  answer 
for, — he  was  able  to  hammer  any  point  of  view  which 
he  wanted,  and  which  was  desirable  as  a  counter- 


The  Manic hceans.  255 

acting  one  to  a  pervading  heresy,  with  endless  repeti- 
tion upon  the  ear  of  the  Church ;  at  the  same  time 
varying  the  forms  of  speech  sufficiently  to  please  and 
enliven.  In  argument  he  was  not  too  deep  ;  to  have 
been  so  would  have  very  much  obstructed  his  access 
to  the  mind  of  the  mass,  and  prevented  him  from 
getting  hold  of  the  ear  of  the  Church  at  large. 
Nothing  could  have  been  more  fatal  to  his  influ- 
ence than  that  he  should  have  got  himself  im- 
bedded in  some  profound  question,  the  solution  of 
which  must  only  have  taken  him  into  lower  and  still 
more  difficult  depths.  He  undoubtedly  dealt  with 
profound  questions,  but  his  mode  of  dealing  with 
them  was  not  such  as  to  entangle  him  in  knots  and 
intricacies,  arising  from  the  disposition  to  do  justice 
to  all  sides  of  truth.  On  some  subjects  of  contro- 
versy, as  on  the  Manichsean,  his  line  was  clearly  laid 
down  for  him  in  Scripture,  in  the  assertion  of  one 
God  of  infinite  power  and  goodness,  to  which  Mani- 
chaeanism  was  a  direct  contradiction ;  though  here  he 
had  perhaps  in  parts  and  branches  of  the  controversy 
rather  neat  answers,  than  full  or  final  answers.  In 
the  Pelagian  controversy  he  had  one  side  of  truth,  and 
one  fundamental  and  conspicuous  assertion  of  Scrip- 
ture, to  defend,  of  which  the  Pelagian  doctrine  was  an 
audacious  denial ;  but  he  did  not  allow  the  unity  and 
simplicity  of  his  answers  to  be  at  all  interfered  with 
by  large  and  inclusive  views  of  truth.  To  the  extreme 
contradictory  on  the  one  side,  he  gave  the  extreme 
contradictory  on  the  other ;  and  he  gave  it,  as  he  did 
every  answer  he  gave,  with  the  most  triumphant 


256  The  Manichaans  and 

copiousness  of  language;  with  all  the  structure  and 
finished  mould  of  a  consummate  rhetorical  style  ; 
with  the  most  neat  and  admirable  adaptation  of  the 
form  of  answer  to  the  form  of  the  hostile  proposition  ; 
and  with  a  perpetual  freshness,  and  flexibility  of  shape 
and  construction,  in  the  composition  jof  his  argument. 
Augustine  is  indeed,  with  all  this,  monotonous,  and 
perhaps  no  writer  in  the  whole  of  Church  history  tries 
the  patience  of  his  reader  more  than  he  does.  The 
surface  is  elegantly  varied,  but  the  variety  is  thin  and 
superficial,  as  compared  with  a  monotony  which  is 
solid,  bulky,  and  substantial.  The  reader  feels  that 
the  discussion,  under  Augustine's  hand,  is  wanting  in 
the  novelty  and  variety  of  trunk  lines  of  thought. 
We  travel  over  the  ground,  aware  that  we  are  not 
making  solid  way  upon  the  substantial  point;  while 
the  outer  coating  of  the  subject  shows  variety 
and  versatility.  But  this  was  in  fact  all  the  better 
for  his  writing,  looked  at  in  its  controversial  scope. 
It  was  so  much  the  more  powerful  an  instrument 
for  impressing  a  certain  class  of  thoughts  upon 
the  mass  of  men ;  so  much  the  more  effective  from 
its  repetition  and  constancy.  He  was  made,  by 
this  very  modification  of  a  varied  monotony,  - 
perpetually  bringing  in  the  same  ideas  under  very 
slight  difference  of  dress, — only  the  more  nearly  per- 
fect a  controversialist ;  only  the  more  effective  an 
instrument  for  fixing  particular  positions,  and  im- 
pressing a  particular  language  upon  the  Church. 
Augustine's  was  a  different  thinking  from  modern 
philosophical  thought :  he  did  not  advance  by  regular 


the  Jewish  Fathers.  257 

steps,  and  unfold  an  argument  from  a  foundation, 
as  a  modern  superior  writer  does ;  lie  thought  with 
his  pen  in  his  hand,  and  the  great  mass  of  his 
treatises  were  pamphlets ;  many  of  them,  latterly,  hit 
off  in  the  intervals  of  public  business,  and  to  meet 
particular  occasions  and  attacks. 

His  first  controversy  was  the  Manichaean,  to 
which  he  was  the  more  committed  from  having  been 
a  convert  to  Manichseanism  himself.  And  it  may  be 
asked,  "What  could  have  made  Augustine  ever  turn 
Manichsean  ?  When  we  come  across  these  Oriental 
religions,  Gnosticism  and  Manichseanism,  their  phrase- 
ology, whether  it  is  about  aeons,  or  about  nations  of 
light  or  nations  of  darkness,  and  mixtures  of  the  two, 
is  so  extravagant  and  empty,  that  it  seems  the  in- 
vention of  children  rather  than  of  men.  In  Mani- 
chaeanism  (it  is  Augustine's  description),  "  On  the  side 
of  the  bright  and  holy  land  was  the  deep  and  immense 
land  of  darkness,  wherein  dwelt  fiery  bodies,  pestilent 
races.  There  were  boundless  darknesses  emanating 
from  the  same  nature,  countless  with  their  progeny ; 
beyond  which  were  muddy  and  turbid  waters  with 
their  inhabitants,  and  within  which  were  horrible  and 
vehement  winds  with  their  princes  and  producers. 
Then  again  a  destructive  fiery  region  with  its  leaders 
and  nations."1  The  Manichseans  spoke  of  the  five 
caves  of  the  nation  of  darkness;  they  "  assigned  to  the 
people  of  darkness  five  elements,  each  of  which  pro- 
duced its  own  chief;  and  these  elements  they  called 

i  S.  Aug.  contra  Epist.  Manichai,  15. 


258  The  Manichczans  and 

vapour,  darkness,  fire,  water,  wind."1  Both  light  and 
darkness  were  spoken  of  as  Principles,  Natures,  Sub- 
stances, Gods;"2  In  Manichseanism,  then,  the  king- 
dom of  darkness  made  an  attack  on  the  kingdom  of 
light ;  and  the  Light  or  Divine  Nation,  being  in  some 
trepidation  for  itself,  thought  it  best  to  make  a 
compact  with  its  opponent;  and  a  certain  section 
of  the  former,  entering  into  combination  with  the 
latter,  formed  the  composition  of  this  world.  With 
respect,  then,  to  these  and  such  like  representations,  it 
must  be  observed  that  they  are  only  the  pictorial  part 
of  the  system  giving  a  scenic  effect  to  the  theory. 
Though  even  this  had  its  influence  in  proselytising ; 
and  when  Augustine  says  that  this  imagery  put 
into  marked  contrast  before  him  the  "  most  lucid  sub- 
stance of  God,"  and  evil  as  having  its  own  foul  and 
hideous  bulk,  whether  gross  which  they  called  earth, 
or  thin  and  subtle  like  the  body  of  the  air," 3  we  can 
imagine  the  winning  effect  of  a  bright  and  dark  con- 
trast on  a  boy.  But  all  this  must  have  been  meant, 
by  the  very  construction  of  Dualistic  theories,  only  as 
so  much  imagery,  putting  the  theory  into  a  portrait 
shape,  and  adapting  it  to  the  minds  of  the  mass. 
What  was  represented  by  it,  was,  that  there  were  two 
original  substances  in  nature,  a  good  and  an  evil  one. 
And  this  has  an  argument  of  its  own,  which  is  by  no 
means  obsolete  at  the  present  day.  All  Dualistic 
religions  contain  their  main  appeal  to  human  reason 
in  the  circumstance  of  their  pretension  to  represent 

1  S.  Aug.  contra  Epist.  Manichcei,  18  ;  and  de  Hceres.  46,  p.  35,  Ed. 
Migne.  2  Contra  Faustum,  xxi.  1.  3  Confess,  v.  20. 


the  Jewish  Fathers.  259 

facts.  This  is  a  mixed  world,  and  it  must  have  a 
mixed  Deity.  That  is  their  real  basis.  In  what  form 
they  do  this, — whether  under  the  form  of  two  gods,  a 
good  and  an  evil,  or  of  one  God  who  is  a  mixture  of 
both  good  and  evil,  or  who  is  devoid  of  either, — 
is  a  subordinate  point. 

Hume  declared  it  his  opinion  that  there  was 
a  great  deal  in  Manichseanism.  That  philosopher, 
although  he  could,  as  he  said,  argue  ingeniously  for 
ever  against  final  causes,  still  avowed  that,  as  a  man 
of  common  sense,  he  could  not  see  his  way  to  denying 
that  this  world  must  have  originated  in  a  Designing 
Mind.  But  what  kind  of  Mind  ?  Yes,  that  was  the 
difficulty.  "Look  round  this  universe,"  he  says. 
"  What  an  immense  profusion  of  beings,  animated 
and  organised,  sensible  and  active !  You  admire  this 
prodigious  variety  and  fecundity.  But  inspect  a  little 
more  narrowly  these  living  existences,  the  only  beings 
worth  regarding.  How  hostile  and  destructive  to 
each  other !  How  insufficient  all  of  them  for  their 
own  happiness  !  How  contemptible  or  odious  to  the 
spectator !  The  whole  presents  nothing  but  the  idea 
of  a  blind  Nature,  impregnated  by  a  great  vivifying 
principle,  and  pouring  forth  from  her  lap,  without  dis- 
cernment or  parental  care,  her  maimed  and  abortive 
children !  Here  the  Manichaean  system  occurs  as  a 
proper  hypothesis  to  solve  the  difficulty :  and  no  doubt, 
in  some  respects,  it  is  very  specious,  and  has  more 
probability  than  the  common  hypothesis,  by  giving  a 
plausible  account  of  the  strange  mixture  of  good  and 
ill  which  appears  in  life.  But  if  we  consider,  on  the 


260  The  Manichceans  and 

other  hand,  the  perfect  uniformity  and  agreement  of 
the  parts  of  the  universe,  we  shall  not  discover  in  it 
any  marks  of  the  combat  of  a  malevolent  with  a 
benevolent  being.  There  is,  indeed,  an  opposition  of 
pains  and  pleasures  in  the  feelings  of  sensible  creatures  : 
but  are  not  all  the  operations  of  Nature  carried  on  by 
an  opposition  of  principles,  of  hot  and  cold,  moist  and 
dry,  light  and  heavy  ?  The  true  conclusion  is,  that 
the  original  Source  of  all  things  is  entirely  indifferent 
to  all  these  principles ;  and  has  no  more  regard  to 
good  above  ill,  than  to  heat  above  cold,  or  to  drought 
above  moisture,  or  to  light  above  heavy." 

"  There  may  four  hypotheses  be  framed  concerning 
the  first  causes  of  the  universe  :  that  they  are  endowed 
with  perfect  goodness  ;  that  they  have  perfect  malice ; 
that  they  are  opposite,  and  have  both  goodness  and 
malice ;  that  they  have  neither  goodness  nor  malice. 
Mixt  phenomena  can  never  prove  the  two  former  un- 
mixt  principles;  and  the  uniformity  and  steadiness 
of  general  laws  seem  to  oppose  the  third.  The 
fourth,  therefore,  seems  by  far  the  most  probable."1 

Hume,  then,  regarded  Dualism  only  as  one  form  of 
that  theory  of  theism  which  was  based  upon  the  actual 
condition  of  the  universe.  It  was  an  inconvenient 
form,  because  there  was  no  appearance  of  a  struggle 
in  the  construction  of  the  world.  But  so  long  as  your 
God  was  an  induction  from  facts,  which  philosophically 
Hume  thought  He  must  be,  He  must  be  either  two, 
a  good  and  an  evil,  or  one  Deity  mixed  of  both ;  or 
a  wholly  negative  and  extra-moral  Deity.  And  thus 

^     *  Hume's  Philosophical  Works,  ed.  1826,  vol.  ii.  p.  526. 


the  Jewish  Fathers.  261 

in  Mr.  Mill's  autobiography  we  see  a  testimony  paid 
to  the  merits  of  Manichseanism  as  a  mode  of  theism 
doing  justice  to  facts.  Mill  says  of  his  father  James 
Mill,  that  the  grounds  of  his  objection  to  established 
theism  were  moral  more  than  intellectual :  that  he 
found  it  impossible  to  believe  that  a  world  so  full  of 
evil  was  the  work  of  an  Author  combining  infinite 
power  with  perfect  goodness  and  righteousness ;  and 
that  his  intellect  spurned  the  subtleties  by  which  men 
attempt  to  blind  themselves  to  this  open  contradiction ; 
that  he  would  not  have  equally  condemned  the  Sabsean 
or  Manichaean  theory  of  a  good  and  an  evil  principle 
struggling  against  each  other  for  the  government  of  the 
universe ;  and  that  he  had  expressed  surprise  that  no 
one  revived  that  theory  in  our  own  time.1 

So  far,  however,  Manichaeanism  was  only  the 
ancient  theistic  Dualism,  and  stood  upon  the  ground 
of  the  Parsee  religion,  and  the  doctrine  of  Zoroaster 
or  the  Magi.  But  Manichseanism  had  this  notable 
peculiarity,  that  it  was  a  proselytising  and  propa- 
gandising religion.  In  this  respect  it  had  parted 
company  with  the  parent  stock.  It  was  Magianism, 
not  staying  at  home  and  content  with  its  ancestral 
domains,  but  wandering  about  over  the  whole  world 
like  a  knight-errant  in  the  cause  of  truth  and  in  quest 
of  disciples.  It  was  the  ordinary  character  of  these 
Oriental  religions  to  be  stationary ;  where  they  had 
grown  up,  there  they  remained  as  traditionary  systems, 
and  they  manifested  no  inclination  for  adventure  or  con- 
quest. And  so  Magianism  was  naturally  a  stationary 

1  Autobiography  nf  John  Stuart  Mill,  p.  39. 


262  The  Manichceans  and 

religion  :  but  this  was  a  fiery  offshoot  of  it,  which 
had  so  far  diverged  from  the  character  of  the  parent 
religion.  Manichseanism  was  Zoroastrianism  feeling 
a  want  and  void  in  its  own  local  confinement,  be- 
ginning to  suspect  that  truth  ought  to  be  common  to 
all  the  world,  and  so  adopting  the  aim  and  the  scope 
of  a  universal  religion. 

But  this  could  not  be  managed  without  considerable 
difficulty.  The  ancient  Zoroastrianism  had  very  small 
resources  for  a  universal  religion.  There  was  little  to 
satisfy  the  human  heart  in  a  twofold  Deity,  and  in  an 
internecine  war  of  good  and  evil,  in  which  the  theory 
did  not  speak,  at  any  rate  with  any  trumpet  voice,  as 
to  the  issue.  But  when  the  Manichaean  had  issued 
forth  from  the  precincts  of  his  own  national  worship, 
and  looked  around  him  on  open  ground,  he  saw 
before  him  the  youthful  and  vigorous  religion  of 
Christianity,  avowedly  aiming  at  universal  empire, 
and  considering  that  its  lawful  and  natural  prize.  It 
had  already  even,  partially  accomplished  its  purpose, 
had  broken  down  the  boundaries  of  nations,  and  shown 
itself  of  a  universal  type.  This  was  a  striking  phe- 
nomenon to  a  religious  propagandist,  who  aimed  at 
the  same  result,  but  with  wholly  inadequate  means. 
The  idea  struck  him  that  he  would  use  the  Christian 
religion  for  the  purpose  of  giving  universality  to  the 
Magian.  He  had,  as  it  were,  a  universality  provided 
for  him  and  ready  at  hand  in  the  catholic  Church  and 
creed,  if  only  it  could  be  appended  to  his  own  religion ; 
but  unfortunately  at  present  it  belonged  to  a  differ- 
ent stock  and  antecedents.  How  was  the  transfer  to 


the  Jewish  Fathers.  263 

be  effected  ?  Obviously  by  a  bargain  or  compact  of 
some  kind ;  but  what  ?  Magianism  must  of  course 
engraft  its  own  main  doctrines  upon  Christianity ;  that 
was  essential,  otherwise  it  would  not  be  Magianism 
which  would  attain  universality  in  Christianity ;  which 
was  the  object.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  Magianism,  i.e. 
the  Manichsean  offshoot  of  it,  would  professedly  receive 
into  itself  certain  portions  of  Christianity.  There 
would  thus  be  an  incorporation  of  Magianism  into  Chris- 
tianity, of  Christianity  into  Magianism ;  and  the  com 
bination  would  be  an  eternal  and  universal  religion. 

Manichseanism,  then,  in  order  to  fulfil  its  share 
in  the  compact,  incorporated  in  a  certain  shape, 
though  a  wholly  spurious  one,  the  Christian  doctrines 
of  the  Trinity,  the  Incarnation,  the  Atonement. 
It  acknowledged  in  words  a  Holy  Ghost,1  but  it 
placed  His  habitation  in  the  air.  It  acknowledged 
again  the  Second  Person  in  the  Trinity,  and  gave 
Him  the  name  of  Logos ;  but  it  assigned  to  Christ 
the  sun  as  His  residence,  and  even  identified  Him 
with  the  vivifying  power  of  the  sun.  This  was  a 
physical  theory  of  our  Lord,  who  thus  became  partly 
the  ancient  Mithra  of  the  Magian  system,  and  partly 
the  source  of  the  animating  principle  of  the  physical 
world.  This  was  the  office  of  power 2  which  belonged 
to  the  Eedeemer.  The  patibilis  Christus,  the  suffer- 
ing Christ,  consisted  in  the  same  power  being  detached 
and  delivered  from  the  channels  in  which  it  had  re- 
sided— i.e.,  from  the  receptacles  of  vegetable  nature  ; 
which  detachment  and  delivery  took  place  by  death. 

1  Contra  Faustum,  xx.  2.  2  Ib.  xx.  2. 


264  The  Manichceans  and 

Our  Lord  was  thus  spoken  of  as  undergoing  injury, 
degradation,  and  pollution,  "in  the  bands  of  earthly 
materials,  in  the  juices  of  herbs,  and  in  the  corrup- 
tion of  all  flesh ; " l  and  it  was  said  that  "  the  Saviour 
was  crucified  in  the  whole  world  and  in  every  soul ; " 
and  Christ,  it  was  said,  "  was  daily  born,  suffered,  and 
died — that  He  hung  from  every  tree/' 2  A  more  local 
presence  of  our  Lord  upon  earth  even  was  accepted, 
but  no  true  incarnation.  "The  light,"  says  Manes,3 
"  touched  not  the  substance  of  the  flesh,  but  was  only 
shaded  with  a  likeness  and  form  of  flesh."  It  was 
denied  that  Christ  really  took  on  Him  human  flesh, 
that  He  was  born,  or  died,  or  rose  again,  or  was  cir- 
cumcised, baptized,,  or  tempted,  or  had  any  of  the 
affections  of  a  man.  But  the  delivery  which  was 
assigned  to  Christ  as  a  function  was  still  the  delivery 
from  error  and  slavery,  from  enmity  and  from  death. 
Though  these  expressions  too  receive  a  Manichsean 
sense  from  the  interpretation  of  their  uses  elsewhere. 
They  seem  to  mean  only  what  Christ  was  and  did  as 
a  teacher.  "  We  cannot  be  reconciled,"  the  Manichsean 
said,4  "  save  through  a  Master,  who  is  Christ  Jesus." 
"  We  follow  the  true  knowledge,  and  that  knowledge 
restores  the  mind  to  the  memory  of  its  former  state 
in  the  kingdom  of  light." 5 

But  there  was  another  exchange  to  be  made 
before  the  compact  of  Manichaeanism  with  Chris- 
tianity was  completed.  When  the  Manichsean  turned 

i  Contra  Faustum,  xx.  17.  2  Ib.  xx.  2. 

3  Epist.  ad  Zebenam  ap.  Fabric.  Bibl.  Gr.  v.  284. 

4  Contra  Fortunat.  17.  6  Ib.  20. 


the  Jewish  Fathers.  265 

his  eye  upon  the  spectacle  of  Christianity,  he  saw 
there  a  mighty  and  expansive  future,  but,  in  his  view, 
a  somewhat  degraded  and  ignominious  past.  He  could 
not  tolerate  the  Old  Testament  Saints.  The  Patriarchs, 
the  Judges,  the  Prophets,  the  Kings, — he  regarded 
them  all  as  simply  involved  in  one  charge  of  im- 
morality, barbarism,  fraud,  and  bloodshed.  Their  ways 
and  mode  of  life  were  odious  to  him,  and  conflicted 
in  the  most  marked  way  with  the  Oriental  standard 
of  sublimity  and  sanctity.  He  could  not  possibly 
understand  how  a  high  Saint  could  have  many  children, 
still  less  how  a  Patriarch  could  have  several  wives, 
and  how  a  Judge,  under  the  impulse  of  inspiration, 
could  slay  a  thousand  men  with  the  jawbone  of  an  ass. 
The  freedom,  the  impulse,  the  impetus,  not  to  say  the 
irregularities  of  the  Jewish  saints  more  than  perplexed 
him,  they  astounded,  shocked,  and  disgusted  him.  He 
could  not  conceive  how  such  men  could  stand  at  the 
root  of  that  sacred  stem  which  bore  the  Christian 
branches.  Moses,  in  spite  of  the  moral  scope  of  his 
legislation,  was  intolerable  to  him ;  he  inveighed 
against  his  cruelty,  his  judicial  slaughters,  his  exter- 
minations. Though  an  antagonist,  upon  his  own 
Magian  basis,  to  idolatry,  Faustus,  taking  the  part  of 
the  Canaanites  against  Moses,  declared  of  him  that — 
"  humanorum  nulli  unquam  divinorumque  peper- 
cerit."1  He  asserted  that  when  our  Lord  said  that 
all  before  Him  were  thieves  and  robbers,  He  referred 
to  the  Patriarchs  and  Prophets  of  the  Old  Testament.2 

1  Contra  Faustum,  xv.  1.     "He  spared  nothing  either  human  or 
divine."  2  76.  xvi.  12. 


266  The  Manichceans  and 

The  Law,  with  its  bloody  rites,  circumcision,  and 
sacrifices,  was  denounced  as  only  a  form  of  paganism. 
Even  the  quiet  and  peaceful  family  life  of  the  Jewish 
Patriarch  was  low  in  his  eyes ;  it  was  enveloped  in 
the  chains  of  earth ;  it  did  not  scale  the  heights  of 
holy  absorption,  or  mount  up  to  the  empyrean  of 
mortified  rapture.  It  did  not  at  all  embody,  but 
seemed  coarsely  to  contradict,  the  subtle  Eastern  type, 
which  demanded  as  its  first  condition  the  separation 
from  matter  and  the  rejection  of  sense.  The  fiery 
proud  spirituality  of  the  Oriental  religions  put  to 
shame  the  simplicity,  humility,  and  practical  temper 
of  the  Jewish  saintly  mind.  The  Manichsean  could 
not  imagine  that  such  a  life  could  be  a  chastised  life. 
Though  it  is  the  experience  of  most  people,  when 
any  peculiarly  showy  specimens  of  goodness  have 
been  before  them  in  life,  that  some  character  less 
striking  in  outward  effect  has  been  really  the  best, 
this  was  not  his  conclusion.  The  Old  Testament 
saints  and  prophets  were  not  showy  enough  for  him. 
What  was  to  be  done  with  such  a  spiritual  ancestry  ? 
The  large  prospect  of  the  Christian  Church,  its  strong 
and  vigorous  present,  were  objects  of  ambition  for  the 
Manichaean  to  get  hold  of,  but  he  could  not  accom- 
modate his  stomach  to  its  low  progenitors.  Could  he 
persuade  it  to  give  them  up,  and  in  the  place  of 
Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  the  Patriarchs  and  the  Pro- 
phets, to  adopt  as  spiritual  forefathers — the  Magi  1 
For  this  was  virtually  the  scope  of  the  compact.  It 
assumed  the/brm  indeed  of  disbelieving  all  the  accounts 
of  the  Old  Testament  saints,  and  rejecting  the  whole  of 


the  Jewish  Fathers.  267 

the  Bible  narrative  on  that  head  : — "  Puniantur  scrip- 
tores,  damnentur  eorum  libri,  purgetur  propheticum 
nomen  indigna  fama,  gravitati  atque  censurse  suse 
Patriarcharum  reddatur  auctoritas."  *  But  if  the 
actual  recorded  character  of  the  Jewish  saints  was 
thus  blotted  out,  and  another  substituted  for  it 
by  an  hypothesis ;  what  must  that  substituted  cha- 
racter be  ?  It  must  of  course  be  the  one  which  as  a 
Manichsean  he  considered  was  the  proper  character  for 
saints  to  possess ;  or  the  sanctity  of  his  own  Magi. 
This  was  in  fact,  then,  to  say  :  You  really  cannot  keep 
these  Old  Testament  saints ;  I  can  assure  you  they  do 
not  do  for  you ;  they  really  are  a  discredit  to  you ;  you 
must  change  them  ;  it  will  be  a  great  improvement ; 
attach  the  Magi  to  Christianity ;  they  are  real  saints, 
and  will  make  you  forefathers  of  whom  you  need  not 
be  ashamed,  vx 

Now  it  is  certainly  an  advantage  which  belongs 
to  hypothetical  spiritual  ancestors,  that  their  merits 
can  be  exalted  to  the  utmost  point  of  perfection 
without  any  fear  of  contradiction.  This  undescribed 
and  unrecorded  line  of  Jewish  saints  which  was  to  oust 
the  known  recorded  line,  would  have  been  supposed 
to  possess  all  the  highest  qualifications  of  Eastern 
saints,  and  all  the  ascetic  and  contemplative  virtues. 
And  so  to  the  Manichsean  Faustus  the  exchange  would 
have  seemed  a  most  happy  one.  But  to  us  at  the  present 
day  it  is  more  than  questionable  whether  the  torpid, 

1  Contra  Faustum,  xxii.  3.  "  Let  the  writers  be  punished,  let  their 
books  be  condemned,  let  the  name  of  the  prophets  be  purified  from 
the  fame  that  degrades  them,  let  the  authority  of  the  Patriarchs  be 
restored  to  the  sober  and  severe  life  that  is  truly  theirs." 


268  The  Mamchceans  and 

ascetic  contemplativeness  of  the  Eastern  saint  would 
have  seemed  a  good  exchange  for  the  true  and  genuine 
form  of  character  which  belongs  to  the  Old  Testament 
saint, — its  naturalness,  its  life,  with  all  its  irregulari- 
ties ;  and  whether  it  would  not  have  appeared  like  a 
substitution  of  dead  men  for  living  ones. 

It  was  indeed  one  of  the  principal  weapons  which 
the  Manichaean  controversialist  wielded  against  Chris- 
tianity— the  character  of  the  Old  Testament  saints ; 
i.e.,  the  striking  difference  of  moral  standard  in  the 
Old  Testament  and  the  New.  He  made  the  very 
most  of  this,  and  threw  in  the  face  of  Christians 
the  actions  of  the  Patriarchs,  with  an  insolence 
which  reminds  one  of  the  lowest  ranges  of  modern 
controversy.  The  tone  in  which  Faustus  censures 
Abraham,  Moses,  the  Judges,  and  David,  is  like  that  of 
the  National  Reformer.  And  when  we  meet  Augustine 
afterwards  as  a  champion  and  defender  of  the  Jewish 
saint  against  Manichseanism,  we  can  easily  under- 
stand that  this  difficulty  would  have  pressed  upon  him 
strongly  when  that  system  first  gained  him  as  a 
convert ;  and  that  the  escape  which  the  Manichsean 
offered  from  the  moral  difficulties  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment was  among  the  principal  attractions  of  his 
side  of  the  argument;  that  it  would  have  great 
influence  upon  youthful  philosophical  minds.  The 
objections  to  Old  Testament  morals  were  upon  the 
surface,  the  answer  was  indirect  and  roundabout. 

Putting  aside,  then,  the  substantial  part  of  the 
Manichsean  controversy,  that  concerned  with  the  dual- 
istic  basis  of  that  religion,  which  Augustine  refuted 


the  Jewish  Fathers.  269 

upon  the  principles  of  the  Old  Testament  revelation  of 
one  God  of  infinite  power  and  goodness,  let  us  attend 
to  this  offshoot,  but  still  very  important  offshoot,  of 
the  subject,  which  had  to  do  with  the  difficulty  of  Old 
Testament  morality. 

The  answers  of  Augustine,  then,  to  the  Manichsean 
invectives  against  the  Patriarchs  and  saints  of  the  Old 
Testament,  were  characterised  by  that  ingenuity  which 
so  marked  his  controversial  treatment  of  subjects. 
"Those  who  raise  these  objections,"  he  says,  "against  the 
actions  of  the  Patriarchs,  are  like  schoolboys,  who  would 
reprove  their  masters  for  some  apparent  grammatical 
mistake,  which  is  no  real  mistake  :  for  example,  they 
know  the  rule  that  a  noun  singular  cannot  be  joined 
with  a  verb  singular ;  and  so  when  their  teacher,  who 
is  most  learned  in  the  Latin  tongue,  repeats  the  line — 
'pars  in  frusta  secant;'  some  boys  would  correct 
him,  and  say,  '  No,  not  secanZ ;  it  must  be  secatf/  And 
when  he  says  '  jReZligione  patrum/  they  would  say, 
'  No  :  religione,  not  reZligione.'  There  is  an  analogy 
between  these  absurd  corrections  and  the  charges  of 
these  objectors.  The  virtues  of  great  minds  are  some- 
times like  the  faults  of  little  minds.  There  is  as 
much  distance  between  the  typical  acts  of  the  Prophets 
and  the  sensual  sins  of  the  wicked,  as  there  is  between 
the  solecisms  or  barbarisms  of  tyros  and  the  figures 
and  metaplasms  of  grammarians."1 

So  again  .  .  .  "They"— Manichsean  objectors  to  Old 
Testament  morals — "  are  like  to  men  who  decry  the 
utility  of  things,  when  they  do  not  know  what  the 

1  Contra  Faustum,  xxii.  25. 


2  7O  The  Manichczans  and 

things  themselves  are.  As  if  a  deaf  man  should  see 
the  lips  moving  of  men  talking,  and  should  blame  the 
superfluity  and  deformity  of  the  motions  ;  or  as  if  a 
blind  man  put  into  a  house,  which  he  had  heard  much 
praised,  should  feel  round  with  his  hand  to  test  the 
smoothness  of  the  walls,  and  coming  to  windows, 
should  find  fault  with  their  inconvenience,  and  suppose 
them  to  be  ruinous  holes." 1 

The  typical  aspect  of  Old  Testament  actions  is 
strongly  pressed  by  Augustine.  But  now  we  come  to 
a  solid  and  real  defence,  viz.,  that  the  Divine  orders 
in  the  Old  Testament  to  do  actions  which  we  think 
wrong  now,  are  the  necessary  accommodation  of  the 
Divine  policy,  and  with  it  of  the  Divine  commands,  to 
the  circumstances  and  moral  standard  of  the  day.  To 
the  contrast  drawn  beween  Patriarchs  and  Apostles 
he  replies  — "  Nee  valetis  disumere  consuetudinem 
temporis  illius,  quo  promissio  velabatur,  a  consue- 
tudine  temporis  istius,  quo  promissio  revelatur." 2 
"Why  does  Faustus  object  to  the  spoiling  of  the 
Egyptians  ?  As  if  Moses  would  not  have  sinned  had 
he  not  done  it  I  "  Deus  enim  jusserat  qui  utique  novit 
.  .  .  secundum  cor  hominis,  quid  unusquisque,  vel 
per  quern  perpeti  debeat.  .  .  .  Digni  ergo  erant  et  isti 
quibus  talia  juberentur,  et  illi  qui  talia  paterentur." 3 

1  Contra  Faustum,  xxii.  7. 

2  75.  xxii.  71.     "You  are  not  able  to  discern  between  the  custom 
of  that  time,  when  the  promise  was  being  veiled,  and  the  custom  of 
the  (present)  time  in  which  the  promise  is  revealed." 

3  Ib.  xxii.  71.     "For  God  had  ordered  it,  who  really  knows  .  .  . 
according  to  the  state  of  man's  heart  what  each  ought  to  suffer,  and  at 
whose  hands.  .  .  .  Therefore  they  were  worthy  for  their  part  to  receive 
such  commands,  and  the  others  to  suffer  such  treatment." 


the  Jewish  Fathers.  271 

.  .  .  And  he  adheres  to  the  answer  in  spite  of  the 
objection  raised  that  a  true  or  good  God  could  not 
have  given  such  commands.  ..."  Imo  vero  talia  recte 
non  jubet,  nisi  Deus  Verus  et  Bonus,  qui  et  solus  novit 
quid  cuique  jubendum  sit  ...  solus  novit  quando, 
quibus,  per  quos  fieri  aliquid  vel  jubeat  vel  per- 
mittat."1 

The  extermination  of  the  Canaanites  was  thus  an 
instance  of  the  execution,  by  means  of  human  instru- 
ments (who  were  qualified  by  the  carnal  stage  of  mind 
through  which  they  were  then  passing  to  be  the 
recipients  of  such  commands),  of  a  great  Divine  prin- 
ciple that  the  kingdoms  of  idolaters  were  the  pro- 
perty of  the  true  God : — a  principle  which  it  was 
specially  necessary  to  promulgate  at  that  time  :  "  Sed 
earn  rerum  dispensatum  ae  distributionem,  temporum 
ordo  poscebat,  ut  prius  appareret  etiam  ipsa  bona 
terrena  .  .  .  propter  quse  maxime  civitas  impriorum 
diffusa  per  mundum  supplicare  idolis  et  dsemonibus 
solet,  non  nisi  ad  unius  Dei  veri  potestatem  atque  arbi- 
trium  pertinere."2 ...  Do  not  they  understand,  he  says, 
this  principle  of  Divine  accommodation  ? — "  Jamne  in- 
telligunt  quemadmodum  nulla  inconstantia  prsecipien- 

1  Contra  Faustum,  xxii.  72.     "Nay  rather,  none  gives  such  com- 
mands rightly  except  the  true  and  good  God,  who  at  once  alone  knows 
what  commands  each  should  receive  .  .  .  and  who  alone  knows  when, 
to  whom,  and  by  whose  means,  He  should  either  command  or  permit 
anything  to  be  done." 

2  Ib.  76.     "  But  the  order  of  time  demanded  this  dispensation  and 
distribution  of  things,  that  it  should  first  appear  that  even  earthly 
goods,  for  which  the  community  of  impious  men  diffused  throughout 
the  world  is  wont  to  make  greatest  supplication  to  idols  and  demons, 
are  really  only  in  the  disposition  and  free  will  of  the  one  true  God." 


272  •  The  Manichceans  and 

tis,  sed  ratione  dispensantis  pro  temporum  diversitate, 
prsecepte  vel  consilia  vel  permissa  mutentur  ? " 

We  are  in  this  part  of  the  Manichsean  controversy 
introduced  early  into  a  difficult  question,  which  has 
been  a  special  subject  of  modern,  and  most  particularly 
of  very  recent  thought — I  mean  the  difficulty  of  Old 
Testament  morality — how  God  could  give  commands 
to  persons  to  do  the  actions,  which  He  did  command 
in  those  ages.  This  has  been  a  fertile  subject  of  dis- 
cussion in  the  present  day,  and  it  can  hardly  be  said 
that  any  answer  has  even  yet  been  arrived  at  in 
which  there  is  general  concurrence.  Augustine 
appears  to  me  to  have  struck  out  in  a  rough  way 
what  is  the  main  answer  to  the  difficulty,  viz.  that 
God  gives  commands  in  accommodation  to  the  state 
of  mind  and  moral  standard  of  the  recipients  of  them. 
..."  Deus  Verus  et  Bonus  solus  novit  quid  cuique 
jubendum  sit  ....  novit  secundum  cor  hominis, 
quid  unusquisque,  vel  per  quern  perpeti  debeat.  .  .  . 
Digni  ergo  erant  et  isti  quibus  talia  juberentur,  et  illi 
qui  talia  paterentur." 2  Here  is  involved  the  principle 
that  God  could,  in  a  former  age  and  to  people  of  a 
lower  moral  standard,  give  commands  to  do  actions, 
which  we  should  think  it  wrong ] to  do  now.  "Deus 
jubet  secundum  cor  hominis  . .  .  digni  erant  quibus  talia 
juberentur/'  There  was  a  certain  inward  want,  an 
unenlightenment,  a  rudeness  of  moral  conception,  in 

i  Contra  Faustum,  xxii.  77.  "  Do  they  understand  at  last  how  pre- 
cepts, or  counsels,  or  permissions  are  changed,  with  no  inconstancy  in 
Him  who  gives  them,  but  by  the  wisdom  of  Him  who  dispenses  them 
according  to  the  difference  of  the  times  ?"  2  Ib.  71,  72. 


the  Jewish  Fathers.  273 

those  to  whom  such  commands  were  given;  other- 
wise they  would  not  have  been  given.  God  would 
not  have  given  a  command  to-  slaughter  a  whole 
nation  to  an  enlightened  people :  we  cannot  suppose 
Him,  e.g.,  giving  such  a  command  to  us  at  the  present 
day.  "  But  when  people  were  '  digni  quibus  talia  jube- 
rentur,'  then  God  commanded  'secundum  corhominis/" 
When  their  moral  standard  was  such  as  admitted  of 
such  a  command  being  received  by  them  as  a  Divine 
command,  then  the  command  was  given,  when  in  the 
Divine  course  of  policy  it  was  expedient  that  it  should 
be  given. 

There  is  something  natural  in  this  answer ;  and  if 
any  one  of  ordinary  understanding  were  asked  in  an 
ordinary  way  his  idea  of  the  explanation  of  such 
commands,  he  would  most  likely  state  it  in  this  way. 
But  when  it  has  come  to  formal  judgment  in  theo- 
logical writing,  something  has  prevented  Divines  from 
being  willing  to  admit  that  God  can  command  an 
action  which,  according  to  a  perfect  moral  standard, 
is  wrong.  In  their  account  of  the  Divine  accommoda- 
tion, they  go  as  far  as  permission ;  but  they  stop  with 
permission,  and  do  not  recognise  the  idea  of  God 
actually  commanding  an  action  below  our  moral 
standard,  though  on  a  level  with  the  inferior  moral 
standard  of  an  early  age.  This  element  accordingly 
does  not  enter  into  Butler's  explanation  of  these  com- 
mands;1 his  explanation,  e.g.,  of  the  Divine  command 
to  destroy  the  Canaanites  does  not  bring  in,  or  avail 
itself  at  all  of,  the  special  defence  or  excuse  of  an  in- 

1  See  ante,  p.  31. 
T 


2  74  The  Manichteans  and 

ferior  moral  standard  in  the  Jewish  people  of  that  age. 
His  explanation  rests  entirely  upon  the  Divine  right 
to  destroy  life,  and  to  communicate  the  intention  to 
execute  that  right  to  the  persons  through  whose 
instrumentality  it  was  to  be  carried  out.  But  this 
defence  would  apply  as  much  to  such  a  command 
given  in  the  present  day,  as  it  would  to  a  like  com- 
mand given  in  the  age  of  Moses  and  Joshua.  It  does 
not  rest  on  or  avail  itself  of  any  distinction  of 
moral  standard  existing  between  the  two  ages.  And 
though  Butler  would  doubtless  acknowledge  such  a 
distinction  as  afact,  his  explanation  does  without  it. 

Augustine's  explanation  distinctly  avails  itself  of 
this  element  of  defence,  and  expressly  acknowledges 
the  moral  right  of  the  Deity  not  only  to  permit,  but 
to  command,  actions  of  imperfect  morality,  when  the 
moral  standard  of  the  age  does  not  rise  above  that 
level. 

But  while  Augustine  acknowledges  the  imperfect 
moral  standard  of  the  Patriarchal  and  Prophetic  age, 
this  does  not  in  the  least  affect  his  estimate  of  the 
high  sanctity  and  greatness  of  Patriarchs  and  Prophets 
themselves.  Underneath  the  differences  of  special 
moral  rules  and  ideas,  in  which  they  were  at  a  dis- 
advantage, and  which  were  those  of  the  age  in  which 
they  lived,  he  sees  a  fundamental  unity  of  general 
sanctity  and  greatness,  and  loftiness  of  character, 
which  unites  them  with  the  Apostles  and  the  highest 
saints  of  the  New  Testament.  It  is  a  difficult  question 
in  moral  philosophy  how  far  any  man  is  lowered  in- 
dividually in  moral  character  by  the  faults  and 


the  Jewish  Fathers.  275 

defective  rules  of  his  age.  One  sees  a  moral  greatness 
in  an  individual  which  lies  underneath  the  growth 
and  progress  of  moral  ideas  in  the  race;  which 
greatness  is  the  same  in  a  Patriarch  that  it  is  in  an 
Apostle.  We  rest  satisfied  that  there  is  this  fun- 
damental unity,  in  the  moral  character  of  Patriarch 
and  Apostle,  notwithstanding  the  variety  of  particular 
rules  under  which  they  lived, — which  unity  puts  them 
on  the  same  basis  as  religious  men.  With  St.  Augus- 
tine it  is  always — "  Tantus  Patriarcha,  Pater  Abraham, 
Sanctus  vir  Jacob,  sancti  Patriarchse — quorum  se 
Deum  appellari  voluit  Deus." l 

1  Contra  Faustum,  xxii.  46,  47,  59. 


APPENDIX. 
LECTURE  I,  NOTE  1,  p.  1. 

AN  inscription  on  the  bricks  of  Mugheir  seems  to  identify  the 
god  whom  Terah  worshipped,  with  the  Moongod  whose  worship 
was  established  in  the  ancient  Chaldsean  capital  (see  Kawlinson's 
Herodotus,  vol.  i.  p.  365).  The  expression,  "served  other  gods" 
evidently  alludes  to  some  decided  form  of  idolatry.  Some  sort  of 
superstitious  use  of  images  appears  to  have  adhered  to  the  family 
stock  which  Abraham  left  behind  him  in  Haran  at  his  second  and 
solitary  migration  into  Canaan,  even  after  the  first  migration  of 
the  whole  house  from  the  other  side  the  flood — from  Ur  of  the 
Chaldees.  When  Eachel,  a  daughter  of  the  branch  at  Haran, 
fled  with  Jacob  from  her  father  Laban,  she  stole  "  his  gods,"  and 
"  put  the  images  in  the  camel's  furniture." l  And  whatever  the 
superstition  was,  it  seems  to  have  gone  on  surreptitiously  for 
some  time  even  among  Jacob's  own  household ;  for  on  his  jour- 
ney to  Bethel,  he  "  said  unto  his  household  and  to  all  that  were 
with  him,  Put  away  the  strange  gods  that  are  among  you,  and  be 
clean,  and  change  your  garments."2  But  this  corrupt  use  of 
images  could  hardly  have  been  any  formal  system  of  idolatry ; 
for  the  worship  of  the  one  God,  as  the  open  and  established 
worship  of  Jacob's  household,  would  have  precluded  this  j  nor, 
had  the  kindred  left  behind  in  Haran  been  formal  idolaters, 
would  there  have  been  any  reason  for  the  family  of  Abraham  so 
carefully  maintaining  the  connection  with  them,  and  its  heirs 
taking  their  wives  exclusively  from  them,  religiously  avoiding 
the  daughters  of  the  people  of  the  land.  There  would  have  been 
no  religious  ground  for  keeping  up  this  marked  distinction  be- 
tween the  kindred  at  Haran  and  the  Canaanites,  had  both  wor- 
shipped false  gods.  This  use  of  images  is  generally  supposed  to 

1  Gen.  xxxi.  30,  34.  2  Gen.  xxxr.  2. 


278  Appendix. 

have  been  connected  with  some  practice  of  divination  or  some 
minor  form  of  superstition,  which  was  consistent  with  the  regular 
worship  of  one  God.  But  the  forefathers  of  Abraham  "  served 
other  gods,"  they  were  idolaters  who  paid  to  false  gods  that 
worship  which  was  due  to  the  one  true  God.  The  book  of 
Judith  follows  the  statement  of  Scripture.  "This  people  (the 
Jews)  are  descended  of  the  Chaldseans  :  and  they  sojourned 
heretofore  in  Mesopotamia,  because  they  would  not  follow  the 
gods  of  their  fathers,  which  were  in  the  land  of  Chaldeea.  For 
they  left  the  way  of  their  ancestors,  and  worshipped  the  God  of 
heaven,  the  God  whom  they  knew :  so  they  cast  them  out  from 
the  face  of  their  gods,  and  they  fled  into  Mesopotamia,  and  so- 
journed there  many  days.  Then  their  God  commanded  them  to 
depart  from  the  place  where  they  sojourned,  and  to  go  into  the 
land  of  Chanaan." * 

"  Frequens  et  obvia  est  de  ea  re  apud  veteres  historia ;  sed 
vereor  ut  suam  satis  liberent  fidem,  qui  tarn  constanter  de  rebus 
tarn  priscis  sententiam  proferunt.  Tradunt  sane  Ebrsei  statu- 
arium  fuisse  Tharam,  atque  eandem  cum  eo  aliquandiu  exercuisse 
artem  Abrahamum.  Et  legitur  Sacris  Literis  Tharam,  et  patres 
ei  contemporaneos,  alienos  Deos  coluisse,  quod  in  Josuse  cap. 
xxiv.  com.  2  reperitur.  Quod  ansam  forte  prsebuit,  ut  idolatrise 
initia  ei  deberi  posteri  censerent.  Abrahamum  item  in  ardentem 
fornacem  a  Nimrodo  conjectum,  cum  idolorum  cultum  detrectaret, 
scribunt.  Id  prseter  vulgo  tritos  scriptores  habet  Chaldseus 
paraphrastes  in  Ecclesiastem  cap.  iv.  com.  13  sed  vix  est  ut 
parentalia  seu  feriarum  dehicalium  sacra  tarn  celeri  in  divinos 
honores  transitu,  quam  brevia  sevi  inter  Sheruchum  et  Tharam 
intervalla  proposcerint,  demutarentur.  At  vero  Chaldaica  ilia 
paraphrasi,  Uzielidi  tributa,  etiam  locus  ille  Mosis,  qui  quartum 
Genesis  caput  claudit  de  idolis,  capitur  perinde  ac  si  diu  etiam 
ante  diluvium  coli  ccepissent,  circa  annum  nempe  a  mundi  con- 
ditu  ducentisimum  quadragesimum." 2 

"  Imagines  illas  quas  furata  est  Eahel,  Ebraei  vocant  Teraphim, 
Gen.  cap.  xxxi.  comm.  19.  Pro  Diis  esse  habitas,  testis  est  ipse 
Laban,  Quare,  inquit  i\le,furatus  es  Deos  meos  ?  Jacobum  adlocutus. 
Fictas  eas  ab  astrologis,  ut  futura  prsedicerent,  sentit  R.  D. 
Kimchi,  et  humana  forma  factas,  ita  ut  ccelestis  influentise  essent 
1  Chap.  v.  6-9.  2  Selden,  vol.  ii.  p.  238. 


Appendix.  279 

capaces,  adnotat  Abraham  Aben  Ezra  theologus  et  astrologus 
Judseorum  maximus ;  atque  ad  earn  mentem  interpretatur  Tera- 
phim  quse  pro  liberando  Davide,  in  lecto  posuit  Michal  uxor  ejus, 
de  qua  historia  est  1  Sam.  cap.  19.  Inter  causas  etiam,  cur 
Eahel  eas  sustulerit,  hanc  unam  recensent,  ne  scilicet  Labani 
illarum  inspectione  innotesceret,  per  quod  iter  ilia  abierat.  Ideo 
D.  Augustinus  Quaest.  xciv.  in  Genesim.  Quod  Laban,  inquit, 
dicit,  Quare  furatus  es  Deos  meos  ?  Tiinc  est  illud  fortasse  quod  et 
augurari  se  dixerat.  Imo  et  Aben  Ezra  augurium  illud  ad  Tera- 
phim  Labanis  refert.  Utrum  autem  ut  Dii  colerentur  Teraphim, 
utcunque  Dii  dicti,  an  vero  divinationis  tantum  instrumenta 
haberentur ;  vetus  est  inter  magistros  controversial x 


LECTURE  III.,  NOTE  2,  p.  74. 

WARBURTON'S  great  theory  of  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac  is  based 
upon  the  Scriptural  account  of  that  sacrifice,  as  undertaken  with 
the  full  expectation  of  the  restoration  of  the  victim  to  life ;  but 
he  raises  upon  this  basis  a  bold  superstructure  of  his  own,  for 
which  it  is  not  easy  to  find  equal  Scripture  warrant, — the  theory, 
viz.,  that  the  sacrifice  was  a  scenical  representation,  a  representa- 
tion by  action  of  the  Atonement  and  Resurrection  of  Christ,  and 
a  revelation  of  the  Gospel  scheme  to  Abraham.  The  whole  sub- 
ject of  teaching  by  action,  which  prevailed  in  antiquity,  and  is 
adopted  in  Scripture,  is  discussed  and  elucidated  by  Warburton. 
To  Jeremiah  it  is  said, — "  Make  thee  bonds  and  yokes,  and  put 
them  upon  thy  neck ;  " 2  to  Hosea,  —  "  Go,  take  thee  a  wife  of 
whoredoms  ; "  3  to  Ezekiel, — "  Prepare  thee  stuff  for  removing," 4 
etc.  This  was  information  by  action  instead  of  words.  The 
Almighty,  by  the  first  of  these  actions,  indicating  the  conquest  of 
Nebuchadnezzar  over  Edom,  Moab,  etc. ;  by  the  second,  declaring 
His  abhorrence  of  the  idolatries  of  the  house  of  Israel ;  by  the 
third,  foretelling  the  approaching  captivity  of  Zedekiah.  And 
thus  Ahijah  rent  his  garment  into  twelve  pieces,  of  which  he  gave 
Jeroboam  ten,  to  signify  the  secession  of  the  ten  tribes.5  The 

1  Selden,  vol.  ii.  p.  279. 

a  Jer.  xxvii.  2.  *  Hos.  i.  2.  4  Ezek.  xii  3. 

5  1  Kings  xi.  29,  30. 


280  Appendix. 

sacrifice  of  Abraham  then  was,  according  to  Warburton,  an 
example  of  the  same  manner  of  teaching.  The  offering  up  of 
Isaac,  in  which  the  real  death  of  that  victim  was  contemplated, 
combined  with  the  event  of  his  son's  restoration,  revealed  to  the 
Patriarch  the  Atonement  and  the  Resurrection.  Substantial  action 
was  at  the  same  time  scenic  representation.  The  information,  he 
supposes,  had  been  solicited  by  Abraham ;  and  "  the  father  of  the 
faithful  must,  from  the  nature  of  the  thing,  become  very  desirous  of 
knowing  the  manner  how  this  blessing  [In  thee  shall  all  the  fami- 
lies of  the  earth  be  blessed]  was  to  be  brought  about.  A  Mystery, 
if  we  will  believe  the  Author  of  our  Faith,  that  engaged  the 
attention  of  other  holy  men,  less  concerned  than  Abraham,  and 
consequently  less  stimulated  and  excited  by  their  curiosity : 
1  And  he  turned  unto  his  disciples,  and  said  .  .  .  For  I  tell 
you,  that  many  prophets  and  kings  [and  much  more  Abraham, 
must]  have  desired  to  see  those  things  which  ye  see,'"1  etc. 
(Luke  x.  23,  24). 

And  the  text, — "  Your  father  Abraham  rejoiced  to  see  my 
day,"  is  adduced  as  proof  that  the  information  thus  solicited  by 
Abraham  beforehand  had  been  promised  to  him, — the  argument 
being  that  the  Greek  word  for  rejoiced — qyaXXidaaro — signifies 
"  the  tumultuous  pleasure  which  the  expectation  of  an  actually 
approaching  blessing  occasions."  So  convinced,  indeed,  is  War- 
burton  that  Abraham  received  information  by  action  of  the  great 
events  of  the  Gospel,  that  he  accounts  for  the  knowledge  not 
having  been  divulged,  but  having  been  concealed  by  the  Patri- 
arch. 

But  such  a  theory  as  this  encounters  great  and  insuperable 
objections.  Warburton  explains,  indeed,  the  total  silence  of  the  Old 
Testament  about  this  communication  to  Abraham,  by  saying  that 
it  would  have  been  contrary  to  the  Divine  scheme  to  have  recorded 
a  revelation  which  would  have  indisposed  the  Jewish  nation  to 
the  preparatory  discipline  of  the  Law.  And  he  answers  the 
objection,  that  the  command  to  sacrifice  Isaac  is  plainly  described 
in  Scripture  not  as  the  vouchsafement  of  a  singular  privilege,  but 
as  a  trial  and  temptation,  by  saying  that  the  privilege  was  granted 
upon  the  condition  of  and  by  means  of  a  trial ;  that  Abraham 
having  requested  to  know  the  mode  in  which  the  blessing  would 

1  Divine  Legation.    Book  vi.  §  5. 


Appendix.  281 

be  accomplished,  the  answer  was,  Offer  up  Isaac,  and  it  shall  be 
revealed  to  you.  But  the  fact  still  remains,  that  Scripture  is 
altogether  silent  about  this  communication  to  Abraham,  and  that 
therefore  the  supposition  is  wholly  gratuitous  and  without  foun- 
dation. The  whole  proof,  indeed,  of  this  supposed  revelation  to 
Abraham  rests  upon  that  single  text  in  the  New  Testament, — 
"  Your  father  Abraham  rejoiced  to  see  my  day ;  and  he  saw  it  and 
was  glad;"  but  it  is  an  extravagant  strain  upon  this  text  to  extort 
this  meaning  out  of  it.  "  To  see  my  day "  is  an  indefinite 
expression,  which  does  not  necessarily  mean  more  than  that 
Abraham  looked  forward  to  the  time  when  the  Divine  promise 
would  be  fulfilled,  and  that  sublime  gift  in  which  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth  were  interested  would  be  actually  bestowed. 

One  consequence  of  Warburton's  adoption  of  a  peculiar  theory 
of  the  sacrifice  of  Abraham  was  a  bad  one — viz.,  that  he  defended 
that  sacrifice  by  the  shield  of  his  own  theory,  and  not  by  the 
simple  statement  of  Scripture.  To  confute  the  notion  that  it  was 
a  propitiatory  human  sacrifice,  in  imitation  of  Canaanitish  worship, 
the  statement  of  Scripture  was  enough, — viz.,  that  he  who  had 
received  the  promise  "  That  in  Isaac  shall  thy  seed  be  called," 
offered  him  up,  "  accounting  that  God  was  able  to  raise  him  up, 
even  from  the  dead."  It  was  of  the  very  nature  of  propitiatory 
sacrifices  that  they  contemplated  the  loss  of  the  victim,  but 
Abraham  did  not  contemplate  the  loss  of  Isaac.  But  Warburton 
prefers  resting  the  defence  of  Abraham's  sacrifice  against  the 
charge  of  being  a  propitiatory  human  sacrifice,  upon  the  ground 
that  the  sacrificial  action  in  it  was  only  scenical  representation 
to  reveal  to  Abraham  the  sacrifice  of  Christ.  "  This  action  being 
mere  scenery,  had  no  moral  import  ;  that  is,  it  conveyed  or  implied 
none  of  those  intentions  in  Him  who  commanded  it,  and  in  him 
who  obeyed  the  command,  which  go  along  with  actions  that  have 
a  moral  import.  Consequently,  the  injunction  and  obedience, 
in  an  action  which  hath  no  such  import,  can  no  way  affect  the 
moral  character  of  the  persons  concerned  :  and  consequently,  this 
command  could  occasion  no  mistakes  concerning  the  Divine  Attri- 
butes, with  regard  to  God's  delighting  in  human  sacrifices." 1 
The  defence  is  good,  were  the  fact  of  the  scenical  representation 
certain  :  the  latter,  however,  is  no  more  than  a  theory,  and  is 

1  Divine  Legation,  vi.  5. 


282  Appendix. 

therefore  a  weak  substitute  for  a  Scripture  statement.  But 
though  Warburton  erects  a  superstructure  of  uncertain  theory  on 
this  subject,  the  groundwork  of  his  view  is  true  and  Scriptural — 
viz.  that  Abraham  offered  up  Isaac,  not  with  the  idea  of  losing 
him,  but  with  the  full  expectation  of  the  recovery  of  the  heir  of 
the  promise. 

LECTURE  V.,  NOTE  3,  p.  121. 

THIS  is  from  a  passage  on  the  subject  of  punishment  on  the  didactic 
principle.  We  say  that  punishment  for  the  fathers'  sins  is  pun- 
ishment on  that  principle,  and  we  call  it  vicarious  punishment, — 
regarding  it  as  being  on  that  principle  and  not  on  the  judicial 
principle.  I  hear  that  certain  persons  are  selected  by  their 
relationship  to  others  to  be  instances  of  the  consequences  of  sin. 
Now  this  is  very  clear  of  those  who  are  thus  didactically  punished 
on  account  of  their  fathers'  sins.  But  Tucker  points  out,  and 
with  great  truth,  that  it  is  not  only  true  of  those  persons  who  are 
punished  on  account  of  their  fathers'  sins,  who  make  this  a 
marked  and  definite  class ;  but  that  it  is  true  of  numbers  of 
men  everywhere  who  are  singled  out  for  this  use  and  purpose  of 
didactic  punishment.  Everywhere  we  see  persons  who  are 
singled  out  for  providential  inflictions,  for  the  purpose  of  im- 
pressing others,  reminding  them  of  the  consequences  of  connection 
with  sin,  —  whether  it  is  the  sin  of  a  father  or  of  a  gover- 
nor, of  a  political  or  a  military  leader,  does  not  signify.  These 
men  are  singled  out  for  didactic  punishment.  They  are  not 
worse  than  other  men  in  themselves ;  and  therefore  so  far  their 
punishment  upon  the  didactic  principle  is  a  vicarious  one — it  is 
in  fact  suffered  for  the  benefit  and  instruction  of  others,  and  for 
the  good  of  society.  As  Tucker  says  : — "  It  is  not  so  much  actual 
suffering,  as  the  terror  of  it,  that  operates  upon  free  will ; "  but 
there  must  be  some  actual  suffering  to  produce  this  terror.  And 
some  must  submit  to  this  suffering  by  visitation  of  Providence ; 
constituting  an  indefinite  and  constantly  seen  class.  We  have, 
in  fact,  vicarious  punishment  of  a  didactic  kind  illustrated  and 
exemplified  everywhere,  not  only  in  those  who  suffer  for  their 
fathers'  sins,  but  in  persons  who  are  visited  by  Providence  gener- 
ally. The  punishment  for  fathers'  sins  is  brought  under  a  more 


Appendix.  283 

general  head,  and  is  only  one  specimen  of  a  large  and  compre- 
hensive system. 

Now  this  being  the  case,  Tucker  goes  off  into  another  point 
as  to  how  justice  is  to  be  satisfied  with  this  kind  of  didactic 
vicarious  punishment,  some  people  being  visited  by  Providence 
for  the  instruction  of  others,  when  they  are  not  worse  in  them- 
selves than  others.  And  the  general  fact  that  it  is  so  may  be 
allowed,  while  it  may  be  difficult  to  explain  the  rationale  of  its 
justice.  And  Mr.  Tucker  may  have  stated  the  fact  rightly,  and 
may  have  rather  missed  a  rationale.  When  we  come  across  the 
fact,  indeed,  a  man  says,  I  object  to  this  fact :  I  object  to  being 
made  an  example  of  didactic  punishment  for  the  instruction  of 
others.  Say,  I  am  one  of  the  host  of  Pharaoh  that  was  over- 
thrown in  the  Red  Sea  for  an  example.  How  is  this  treatment 
justified  ]  Tucker  then  seems  to  admit  that  he  has  a  grievance, 
but  thinks  he  sees  a  way  out  of  it.  He  tells  the  man — "  In  this 
light  of  punishment  it  appears  that  the  party  undergoing  it  does 
a  signal  service  to  his  fellow  creatures,  by  exhibiting  to  them  an 
example  of  utmost  importance ;  and  necessary  to  preserve  them 
in  happiness  :  for  which  service  I  see  nothing  in  our  ideas  of  a 
gracious  Governor  that  should  hinder  His  making  him  amends" l 
He  then  supposes  some  arrangements  made  in  a  future  life  to 
meet  the  case.  But  this  is  loose  and  rough  speculation.  Yet 
the  fact  of  vicarious  didactic  punishment,  it  will  be  allowed,  may 
be  separated  from  the  particular  form  of  it  exhibited  as  a  visit- 
ation for  fathers'  sins,  and  may  be  considered  as  a  general  law 
taking  place  here.  Indeed,  when  we  look  abroad  in  the  world, 
how  much  we  see  of  great  masses  of  providential  visitation, 
which  look  like  didactic  punishment  of  some  kind  or  other,— 
punishment  meant  to  arrest  our  attention,  though  not  judicial 
with  respect  to  individuals  !  A  great  battle  arrests  our  attention, 
and  we  think  it  must  be  meant  to  be  reflected  on.  The  pride 
and  ambition  of  nations  produces  terrible  punishment.  Num- 
bers of  individuals  are  not  implicated  in  this  public  pride  and 
ambition, — still  we  cannot  help  seeing  that  this  fate  is  congenial 
to  this  public  vice  and  stain,  of  kings  and  statesmen.  The  whole 
is  a  lesson,  and  has  a  moral  effect. 

1  Tucker's  Light  of  Nature,  vol.  iv.  p.  396. 


284  Appendix. 

LECTURE  VI,  NOTE  4,  p.  143. 

EAHAB'S  act  was  the  saving  of  two  believers  in  the  true  God, 
whereas  Jael's  was  the  destruction  of  an  enemy  of  God ;  but 
deception  was  common  to  both  acts.1  The  whole  statement 
in  answer  to  the  king  of  Jericho's  demand  for  the  two  spies  was 
false,  the  two  men  being  at  the  very  time  on  the  roof  of  the 
house  hid  with  the  stalks  of  flax.  St.  James,  however,2  says 
that  Eahab  "  was  justified  by  works,"  and  that  this  very  conceal- 
ment of  the  messengers  was  the  work  which  justified  her. 
Scott's  comment  is — "Various  opinions  have  been  formed  con- 
cerning Eahab's  conduct  on  this  trying  occasion.  Some  object 
that  her  treachery  to  her  king  and  country  cannot  be  vindicated  ; 
but  it  may  be  answered,  that  as  she  firmly  believed  the  God 
of  heaven  had  devoted  the  Canaanites  to  be  utterly  destroyed  by 
the  Israelites,  she  must  either  side  with  Israel  and  Israel's  God 
against  her  country,  or  perish  with  it  in  a  hopeless  contest  against 
the  Almighty :  so  that,  in  her  circumstances,  she  could  not  have 
acted  otherwise,  if  influenced  by  a  true  and  living  faith.  ...  In 
respect  of  the  falsehoods  that  she  uttered  ...  if  it  were  her  indis- 
pensable duty  if  possible  to  protect  the  spies,  and  there  were  no 
other  conceivable  way  of  obeying  this,  it  seems  not  necessary  to 
condemn  her  conduct  altogether.  Stratagems  of  war,  and  similar 
impositions  upon  determined  enemies  and  persecutors,  are  not 
absolutely  condemned  in  Scripture,  though  inconsistent  with 
exact  veracity." 8  Bacon,  in  his  tract  " On  Church  Controversies" 
speaking  of  certain  enthusiastic  preachers  of  his  day,  says — "  In 
this  kind  of  zeal,  they  have  pronounced  generally,  and  without 
difference,  all  untruths  unlawful;  notwithstanding,  that  the 
midwives  are  directly  reported  to  have  been  blessed  for  their 
excuse,  and  Eahab  is  said  by  faith  to  have  concealed  the  spies."  * 

LECTURE  VII.,  NOTE  5,  p.  172. 

HOWEVER  justly  Dante  offends  modern  commentators,  it  is  clear 
that  he  did  not  outrage  the  conscience  of  his  own  age,  character- 

1  Josh.  ii.  4,  5.  2  James  ii.  25.  3  Scott's  Bible.     Joshua  ii.  4. 

4  Bacon's  Works,  Ed.  1819,  vol.  ii.  p.  520.    Exod.  i  9 ;  2  Sam.  xvi.  18,  19  ; 
2  Kings  vi.  19. 


Appendix.  285 

ised  as  it  was  by  bitter  enmities,  when  he  treats  an  inmate  of 
the  Inferno  as  a  proper  subject  for  deception ;  as  having  no  right 
to  truth.  In  the  circle  of  traitors,  who  are  plunged  up  to  the 
head  in  a  frozen  lake, — where  tears  on  the  upturned  face  freeze 
before  they  fall,  thus  forming  a  crystal  vizor  of  ice, — he  is  accosted 
by  Frate  Alberigo,  who  had  murdered  his  guests  at  a  banquet. 
Alberigo,  mistaking  him  and  Virgil  for  guilty  spirits  on  the 
way  to  their  doom  in  the  lowest  circle,  thus  piteously  accosts 
them :  — (Inferno <t  Canto  xxxiii.  110.) 

"  0  anime  cnideli 

Tanto,  ehe  data  v'  e  1'  ultima  posta 

Levatemi  dal  viso  i  duri  veil. 

Si^ch'io  sfoghi  il  dolor  che'  1  cuor  m'  impregna 

Un  poco,  pria  che  il  pianto  si  raggieli." 
["  0  souls  so  cruel  that  for  you  is  sealed 
The  doom  of  the  lowest  gulf !  "  so  crying  prayed  me 
One  of  the  sad  ones  of  the  crust  congealed  ; 
"  Lift  from  my  sight  the  hardened  veil,  and  aid  me, 
To  vent  the  sorrow  through  my  heart  extending, 
A  little  ere  the  frost  again  invade  me."] 

Dante  answers  readily  : — 

"  Perch'  io  a  lui :  Se  vuoi  ch'  i  ti  sowegna, 

Dimmi  chi  se' :  e  s'  io  non  ti  disbrigo, 

Al  fondo  della  ghiaccia  ir  mi  convegna." 
[Then  I,  "If  thou  would' st  have  me  succour  lending, 
Say  who  thou  wast ;  and  if  thou  art  deceived, 
Down  to  the  lowest  ice  be  my  descending."] 

He  knew  himself  bound  to  the  icy  bottom  under  the  care  of  his 
guide,  and  in  fact  plays  upon  the  traitor's  misapprehension,  who 
accepts  the  conditions  \  and  declaring  himself, — "  I  am  the  Friar 
Alberigo,"  —  tells  his  tale,  and  calls  for  the  fulfilment  of  the 
promise, — 

"Ma  distendi  oramai  in  qua  la  mano 
Aprimi  gli  occhi :  " 
[But  stretch  out  now  thy  hand,  and 
open  my  eyes.] 

"Ed  io  non  glieli  apersi 
E  cortesia  fu  lui  esser  villano. " 
[And  I  opened  them  not  for  him,  and  to 
be  rude  to  him  was  courtesy.] 


286  Appendix. 


LECTURE  VII,  NOTE  6,  p.  175. 

FROM  this  deceit  of  esprit  de  corps  to  benefit  a  clan,  or  tribe, 
or  party,  or  cause,  we  go  to  deceit  for  another  object,  viz.  in 
execution  of  justice.  A  man  has  exposed  himself  to  death  for 
the  crime  of  bloodshed,  and  another  man  has  it  imposed  upon 
him,  as  a  sacred  function,  to  secure  justice  and  kill  him.  This  is 
the  law  of  Goel ;  it  may  happen  that  the  law  can  only  be  carried 
out  by  stratagem  and  deceit ;  and  when  these  are  necessary  the 
avenger  of  blood  must  use  them.  The  Arabian  character,  then,  is 
described  as  generous  and  courageous,  noble  and  frank  in  all  the 
ordinary  relations,  but  the  tactics  which  the  law  of  Goel  imposes 
on  it  try  its  fidelity  to  these  features,  and  engraft  upon  the  main 
stock  of  the  character  some  special  and  occasional  modes  of 
action  which  are  very  opposite ;  we  find  conspicuous  untruthful- 
ness,  treachery,  and  double-dealing,  but  it  is  still  an  insertion  in 
the  general  portrait  of  a  noble-minded  and  magnanimous  man. 
In  the  very  fulfilment  of  the  law  of  Goel  he  undertakes  danger 
for  the  sake  of  duty,  and  sacrifices  himself  for  a  sacred  object. 
It  is  only  when  killing  has  been  imposed  as  a  duty,  that  the 
discharge  from  the  obligation  of  truth  has  been  considered  to  go 
with  it : — it  ought  to  be  said  the  prohibition  to  speak  the  truth, 
the  obligation  to  deceive.  In  proportion  to  the  sanctity  which 
attached  to  the  office  of  avenger  of  blood,  and  to  the  obliga- 
tion which  lay  upon  him  to  pursue  the  man  guilty  of  homicide  to 
death,  was  also  the  strength  of  the  conviction  in  the  avenger's 
mind,  that  he  had  the  right,  or  rather  the  duty  to  put  aside  all 
the  ordinary  rules  of  sincerity  and  truth-speaking  in  the  means  he 
adopted  for  accomplishing  his  end.  Extreme  deceit  was  allowed, 
or  rather  imposed  on  him,  when  it  was  necessary;  because  it 
was  supposed  that  the  duty  of  taking  away  life  superseded  the 
right  to  truth-speaking.  The  use  of  such  tactics  in  an  excep- 
tional case,  then,  implied  no  general  tendency  to  dissimulation  and 
treachery  in  the  man ;  they  were  a  special  instrument  for  a  special 
end,  and  were  totally  different  from  meanness  in  the  character. 

The  whole  moral  sentiment  of  the  East  has  utterly  cashiered, 
within  the  direct  sphere  of  the  duty  of  slaying,  the  duty  of 
veracity.  The  slayer,  while  he  is  under  the  direct  obligation  to 
kill  a  man,  is  under  no  obligation  to  truth ;  but  considers  that  as 


Appendix.  287 

the  man  is  the  fitting  object  of  assassination,  he  is  the  fitting 
victim  of  deceit  and  dissimulation.  Michaelis,  in  his  Arabic 
Chrestomathy,  which  he  quotes  in  his  Commentary  on  the  Laws 
of  the  Hebrews,  relates  stories  of  the  Arabs  which  show  how 
completely,  in  the  execution  of  the  sacred  task  of  avenger  of 
blood,  the  Arab  discards  the  whole  ordinary  duty  of  veracity, 
and  adopts  the  most  intricate  and  elaborate  arts  of  deceit  and 
duplicity  to  get  hold  of  the  manslayer  whose  life  has  become  a 
solemn  forfeit  to  him  which  he  is  bound  to  secure.  The  most 
honourable  Arab  is  under  an  obligation  in  this  instance  to  use 
every  piece  of  dissimulation  which  can  promote  his  end,  and 
bring  the  guilty  man  within  his  grasp. 

"  Hatim,  the  father,  and  Adi,  the  grandfather,  of  Kais  had 
both  been  murdered ;  but  as  that  happened  before  Kais  was 
capable  of  reflection,  his  mother  kept  it  a  secret  from  him,  that 
he  might  not  at  any  future  period  meditate  revenge,  and  thereby 
expose  his  own  life  to  danger.  In  order  to  guard  against  his 
having  any  suspicions,  or  making  any  inquiries  as  to  their 
deaths,  she  collected  a  parcel  of  stones  on  two  hillocks  in  the 
neighbourhood,  that  they  might  have  the  appearance  of  burial- 
places,  and  told  her  son,  that  the  one  was  the  grave  of  his 
father,  the  other  of  his  grandfather.  Kais  had  of  course  no  other 
idea  than  that  his  progenitors  had  died  natural  deaths,  and  were 
there  buried  ....  Kais  had  a  quarrel  with  another  young  Arab, 
and  received  from  him  this  bitter  taunt,  "  You  would  do  better 
to  show  your  courage  on  the  murderer  of  your  father  and  grand- 
father." These  words  spoke  much  and  deeply  to  his  heart ;  he 
became  melancholy;  and  threatened  his  mother  with  killing 
either  her  or  himself,  if  she  did  not  tell  him  the  whole  truth 
relative  to  the  deaths  of  his  father  and  grandfather.  He  thus 
extorted  the  secret  from  her ;  and  immediately  set  out  on  a 
peregrination,  to  which  I  cannot  apply  a  more  proper  phrase, 
than  our  common  one,  of  going  in  quest  of  adventures.  He 
went  to  a  distant  part  of  the  country,  in  quest  of  a  man  named 
Chidasch,  a  friend  of  his  father's,  and  whom  he  knew  to  have 
been  indebted  to  his  father  on  the  score  of  gratitude — for  that 
too  enters  into  an  Arab's  idea  of  honour,  barbarous  as  it  other- 
wise is.  When  he  found  him  out,  he  at  first  entered  his  house 
merely  as  a  stranger,  according  to  the  Arabian  laws  of  hospi- 


288  Appendix. 

tality.  The  wife  of  Chidasch  immediately  observed  something 
in  his  face,  which  led  her  to  ask  whether  he  was  not  going  to 
avenge  blood.  Chidasch  himself  recognised  in  him  a  likeness  to 
his  friend,  and  after  a  short  conversation,  Kais  told  him  where- 
fore he  was  come.  Chidasch  was  somewhat  perplexed ;  for  one 
of  the  murderers  was  his  own  uncle :  but  he  told  Kais,  that 
although  he  would  fain  put  the  murderer  into  his  hands,  he 
could  not  do  it  openly,  but  that  he  had  only  to  mark  his  pro- 
cedure next  night,  when  he  would  set  himself  down  by  the 
murderer,  and  give  him  a  blow  familiarly,  and  in  jest,  upon 
which  signal  he,  Kais,  might  kill  him  himself,  and  trust  to  him 
for  protection  against  all  retaliation  from  the  family.  This  was 
agreed  upon ;  Chidasch  betrayed  his  uncle  by  the  preconcerted 
signal;  Kais  killed  him;  and  when  the  family  threatened 
vengeance,  Chidasch  apologised  for  him,  and  said  he  had  done 
nothing  more  than  put  his  father's  murderer  to  death.  They 
then  set  off  both  together  for  the  province  of  Heger,  or  Baharein, 
on  the  Persian  Gulf,  where  the  murderer  of  his  grandfather 
dwelt.  Chidasch  hid  himself  behind  a  sandhill,  and  Kais  went 
up  to  the  murderer,  and  after  complaining  to  him  that  a  robber 
had  attacked  him  among  the  sandhills,  and  taken  his  property 
from  him,  requested  that  he  would  help  him  to  recover  it. 
According  to  the  prevailing  maxims  of  honour  and  valour  among 
the  Arabs,  he  could  not  refuse  the  stranger's  request,  and 
immediately  commanded  some  of  his  people  to  attend  him. 
This,  however,  did  not  suit  Kais's  view,  whose  countenance 
instantly  betrayed  the  appearance  of  a  smile ;  and  on  the  other 
asking  him  why  he  laughed,  replied,  "  With  us  no  brave  man 
would  take  so  many  people  to  his  aid,  but  would  rather  come 
alone."  The  man  was  ashamed,  and  ordered  his  people  back, 
which  was  what  Kais  wanted.  And  when  they  got  a  sight  of 
the  pretended  robber  among  the  sandhills,  and  the  man  was 
about  to  attack  him,  Kais  stabbed  his  succourer  through  the 
body  from  behind.  And  this  base  and  treacherous  procedure  is 
immortalised  by  a  poem,  which  exactly  suits  the  national  taste 
of  the  Arabs.  So  completely  did  the  avengement  of  blood 
justify  and  extol,  as  brave  and  honourable,  everything  which  we 
would  account  infamous,  and  characteristic  of  a  ruffian." 1 

1  Commentary  on  the  Laws  of  the  Hebrews,  Book  iii.  art.  134. 


Appendix.  289 

This  then  is  another  purpose  for  which  a  lawful  use  was 
assigned  to  treachery  among  rude  people,  viz.  the  execution  of 
justice.  As  a  means  of  securing  justice  and  the  capture  of 
criminals,  treachery  was  completely  and  boldly  justified ;  and 
Jael's  act  had  a  strong  alliance  with  this  form  and  use  of 
treachery.  Sisera  was  a  criminal  flying  from  the  righteous 
justice  of  God ;  she  arrests  his  flight  by  false  promises,  and 
engages  him  to  accept  hospitality  within  her  tent.  It  is  the 
same  dissimulation  which  the  law  of  Goel  adopts,  only  applied  to 
a  different  type  of  criminal.  And  like  the  deceit  employed 
under  the  law  of  Goel,  it  is  not  a  general  habit  of  deceit  so  much 
as  a  local  habit  confined  to  a  special  set  of  circumstances,  and 
justified  by  the  previous  obligation  to  slay. 


LECTURE  VII,  NOTE  7,  p.  178. 

THE  comparison  between  an  earlier  and  a  later  age  is  pre- 
sented in  the  case  of  Lord  Olive  and  his  Indian  administration ; 
and  a  long  contest  between  two  rival  principles  received  a  deci- 
sive settlement  in  English  opinion.  The  great  Indian  statesman 
had  been  under  the  dominion  of  the  false  principle  of  retaliation, 
as  a  just  mode  of  action  under  the  difficulties  of  Indian  admini- 
stration. It  seemed  necessary  to  meet  fraud  by  fraud,  the  gross 
chicanery  of  the  Hindu  by  counter-trick.  Simple  honesty 
appeared  but  a  weak  instrument  to  bring  to  bear  against  subtle 
and  inveterate  deceit.  Was  it  anything  more  on  the  part  of  an 
English  statesman,  than  to  do  justice  to  himself,  when  he  resisted 
one  flagrant  imposition  by  another  ?  "  All  was  going  well,"  says 
Lord  Macaulay,  "  when  Olive  learned  that  Omichund  was  likely 
to  play  false.  The  artful  Bengalee  had  been  promised  a 
liberal  compensation  for  all  that  he  had  lost  at  Calcutta.  But 
this  would  not  satisfy  him.  His  services  had  been  great.  He 
held  the  thread  of  the  whole  intrigue.  By  one  word  breathed 
into  the  ear  of  Surajah  Dowlah,  he  could  undo  all  that  he  had 
done.  The  lives  of  Watts,  of  Meer  Jaffier,  of  all  the  conspirators, 
were  at  his  mercy ;  and  he  determined  to  take  advantage  of  his 
situation,  and  to  make  his  own  terms.  He  demanded  three  hun- 
dred thousand  pounds  sterling  as  the  price  of  his  secrecy  and  of 
his  assistance.  The  committee,  incensed  by  the  treachery  and  ap- 

U 


290  Appendix. 

palled  by  the  danger,  knew  not  what  course  to  take.  But  Olive 
was  more  than  Omichund's  match  in  Omichund's  own  arts.  The 
man,  he  said,  was  a  villain.  Any  artifice  which  would  defeat  such 
knavery  was  justifiable.  The  best  course  would  be  to  promise 
what  was  asked.  Omichund  would  soon  be  at  their  mercy ;  and 
then  they  might  punish  him  by  withholding  from  him,  not  only 
the  bribe  which  he  now  demanded,  but  also  the  compensation 
which  all  the  other  sufferers  of  Calcutta  were  to  receive. 

"  His  advice  was  taken.  But  how  was  the  wary  and  sagacious 
Hindu  to  be  deceived  1  He  had  demanded  that  an  article  touch- 
ing his  claims  should  be  inserted  in  the  treaty  between  Meer 
Jaffier  and  the  English,  and  he  would  not  be  satisfied  unless  he 
saw  it  with  his  own  eyes.  Olive  had  an  expedient  ready.  Two 
treaties  were  drawn  up,  one  on  white  paper,  the  other  on  red, 
the  former  real,  the  latter  fictitious.  In  the  former  Omichund's 
name  was  not  mentioned ;  the  latter,  which  was  to  be  shown  to 
him,  contained  a  stipulation  in  his  favour. 

"  But  another  difficulty  arose.  Admiral  Watson  had  scruples 
about  signing  the  red  treaty.  Omichund's  vigilance  and  acuteness 
were  such  that  the  absence  of  so  important  a  name  would  pro- 
bably awaken  his  suspicions.  But  Olive  was  not  a  man  to  do 
anything  by  halves.  We  almost  blush  to  write  it.  He  forged 
Admiral  Watson's  name.  .  .  . 

"  The  new  sovereign  was  now  called  upon  to  fulfil  the  engage- 
ments into  which  he  had  entered  with  his  allies.  A  conference 
was  held  at  the  house  of  Jugget  Seit,  the  great  banker,  for  the 
purpose  of  making  the  necessary  arrangements.  Omichund  came 
thither  fully  believing  himself  to  stand  high  in  the  favour  of  Olive, 
who,  with  dissimulation  surpassing  even  the  dissimulation  of 
Bengal,  had  up  to  that  day  treated  him  with  undiminished  kind- 
ness. The  white  treaty  was  produced  and  read.  Olive  then 
turned  to  Mr.  Scrafton,  one  of  the  servants  of  the  Company,  and 
said  in  English,  'It  is  now  time  to  undeceive  Omichund.' 
*  Omichund,'  said  Mr.  Scrafton  in  Hindostanee,  'the  red  treaty 
is  a  trick.  You  are  to  have  nothing.'  Omichund  fell  back  insen- 
sible into  the  arms  of  his  attendants.  He  revived  ;  but  his  mind 
was  irreparably  ruined.  Clive,  who,  though  little  troubled  by 
scruples  of  conscience  in  his  dealings  with  Indian  politicians,  was 
not  inhuman,  seems  to  have  been  touched.  He  saw  Omichund  a 


Appendix.  291 

few  days  later,  spoke  to  him  kindly,  advised  him  to  make  a  pil 
grimage  to  one  of  the  great  temples  of  India,  in  the  hope  that 
change  of  scene  might  restore  his  health,  and  was  even  dis- 
posed, notwithstanding  all  that  had  passed,  again  to  employ  him 
in  the  public  service.  But  from  the  moment  of  that  sudden 
shock,  the  unhappy  man  sank  gradually  into  idiocy.  He,  who 
had  formerly  been  distinguished  by  the  strength  of  his  under- 
standing and  the  simplicity  of  his  habits,  now  squandered  the 
remains  of  his  fortune  on  childish  trinkets,  and  loved  to  exhibit 
himself  dressed  in  rich  garments,  and  hung  with  precious  stones. 
In  this  abject  state  he  languished  a  few  months,  and. then  died." l 
This  policy  has  received  a  defence  from  the  old  school  of 
statesmen,  represented  by  the  great  statesman  who  practised 
it ;  but  it  has  been  utterly  unable  to  stand  its  ground  before  pub- 
lic opinion  j  and  the  verdict  of  the  whole  of  English  thought  has 
been  that  no  amount  of  Hindu  dishonesty  is  any  justification  of 
our  own.  "  That  honesty  is  the  best  policy,"  says  Lord  Macaulay, 
"  is  a  maxim  which  we  firmly  believe  to  be  generally  correct,  even 
with  respect  to  the  temporal  interests  of  individuals  ;  but,  with 
respect  to  societies,  the  rule  is  subject  to  still  fewer  exceptions, 
and  that  for  this  reason,  that  the  life  of  societies  is  longer  than 
the  life  of  individuals.  It  is  possible  to  mention  men  who  have 
owed  great  worldly  prosperity  to  breaches  of  private  faith.  But 
we  doubt  whether  it  be  possible  to  mention  a  State  which  has  on 
the  whole  been  a  gainer  by  a  breach  of  public  faith.  The  entire 
history  of  British  India  is  an  illustration  of  the  great  truth  that 
it  is  not  prudent  to  oppose  perfidy  to  perfidy,  and  that  the  most 
efficient  weapon  with  which  men  can  encounter  falsehood  is  truth. 
During  a  long  course  of  years,  the  English  rulers  of  India,  sur- 
rounded by  allies  and  enemies  whom  no  engagement  could  bind, 
have  generally  acted  with  sincerity  and  uprightness ;  and  the 
event  has  proved  that  sincerity  and  uprightness  are  wisdom. 
English  valour  and  English  intelligence  have  done  less  to  extend 
and  to  preserve  our  Oriental  empire  than  English  veracity.  All 
that  we  could  have  gained  by  imitating  the  doublings,  the  evasions, 
the  fictions,  the  perjuries  which  have  been  employed  against  us,  is 
as  nothing,  when  compared  with  what  we  have  gained  by  being 
the  one  power  in  India  on  whose  word  reliance  can  be  placed. 

1  Macaulay'*  Article  on  Lord  Olive. 


292  Appendix. 

No  oath  which  superstition  can  devise,  no  hostage,  however 
precious,  inspires  a  hundredth  part  of  the  confidence  which  is  pro- 
duced by  the  'yea,  yea,'  and  'nay,  nay,'  of  a  British  envoy."1 


LECTURE  IX.,  NOTE  8,  p.  201. 

"  I  MUST  now  speak  (says  Michaelis)  of  a  person  quite  unknown 
in  our  law,  but  very  conspicuous  in  the  Hebrew  law,  and  in  regard 
to  whom  Moses  has  left  us,  I  might  almost  say,  an  unexampled 
proof  of  legislative  wisdom.  In  German,  we  may  call  him  by  the 
name  which  Luther  so  happily  employs,  in  his  version  of  the 
Bible,  Der  Blutracher,  the  blood-avenger ;  and  by  this  name  we 
must  here  understand  '  the  nearest  relation  of  a  person  murdered, 
whose  right  and  duty  it  was  to  seek  after  and  kill  the  murderer 
with  his  own  hand ;  so  much  so,  indeed,  that  the  neglect  thereof 
drew  after  it  the  greatest  possible  infamy,  and  subjected  the  man 
who  avenged  not  the  death  of  his  relation  to  unceasing  reproaches 
of  cowardice  or  avarice.'  If,  instead  of  this  description,  the 
reader  prefer  a  short  definition,  it  may  be  to  this  effect ;  '  the 
nearest  relation  of  a  person  murdered,  whose  right  and  duty  it 
was  to  avenge  his  kinsman's  death  with  his  own  hand.'  Among 
the  Hebrews  this  person  was  called  ?&O,  Goel,  according,  at  least, 
to  the  pronunciation  adopted  from  the  pointed  Bibles.  The 
etymology  of  this  word,  like  most  forensic  terms,  is  as  yet 
unknown.  Yet  we  cannot  but  be  curious  to  find  out  whence  the 
Hebrews  had  derived  the  name,  which  they  applied  to  a  person 
so  peculiar  to  their  own  law,  and  so  totally  unknown  to  ours. 
Unquestionably  the  verb  $>&O,  Gaal,  means  to  buy  off,  ransom,  redeem; 
but  this  signification  it  has  derived  from  the  noun ;  for  origin- 
ally it  meant  to  pollute  or  stain. 

"  If  I  might  here  mention  a  conjecture  of  my  own,  Goel  of  blood 
(for  that  is  the  term  at  full  length)  implies  Hood-stained;  and  the 
nearest  kinsman  of  a  murdered  person  was  considered  as  stained 
with  his  blood,  until  he  had,  as  it  were,  washed  away  the  stain, 
and  revenged  the  death  of  his  relation.  The  name,  therefore, 
indicates  a  person  who  continued  in  a  state  of  dishonour,  until 
he  again  rendered  himself  honourable,  by  the  exercise  and  accom- 
plishment of  revenge ;  and  in  this  very  light  do  tne  Arabs  regard 
1  Macaulay's  Article  on  Lord  Clive. 


Appendix.  293 

the  kinsman  of  a  person  murdered.  It  was  no  doubt  afterwards 
used,  in  a  more  extensive  sense,  to  signify  the  nearest  relation  in 
general,  and  although  there  was  no  murder  in  the  case  ;  just  as  in 
all  languages  words  are  gradually  extended  far  beyond  their 
etymological  meaning.  ...  In  Arabic  writings,  this  word 
occurs  ten  times  for  once  that  we  meet  with  Goel  in  Hebrew ; 
for  the  Arabs,  among  whom  the  point  of  honour  and  heroic 
celebrity  consists  entirely  in  the  revenge  of  blood,  have  much 
more  to  say  of  their  blood-avenger  than  the  Hebrews  ;  among 
whom,  Moses,  by  the  wisdom  of  his  laws,  brought  this  character, 
in  a  great  measure,  into  oblivion 

"  Moses  found  the  God  already  instituted,  and  speaks  of  him  in 
his  laws  as  a  character  perfectly  known,  and  therefore  unneces- 
sary to  be  described;  at  the  same  time  that  he  expresses  his  fear 
of  his  frequently  shedding  innocent  blood.  But  long  before  he 
has  occasion  to  mention  him  as  the  avenger  of  murder,  he  intro- 
duces his  name  in  his  laws  relative  to  land,  as  in  Lev.  xxv.  25, 
where  he  gives  him  the  right  of  redeeming  a  mortgaged  field.  .  . 

"  The  only  book  that  is  possibly  more  ancient  than  the  Mosaic 
law,  namely  the  book  of  Job,  compares  God,  who  will  re-demand 
our  ashes  from  the  earth,  with  the  Goel,  chap.  xix.  25.  From 
this  term  the  verb  ?JO,  which  otherwise  signifies  properly  to  pollute, 
had  already  acquired  the  significations  of  redeeming,  setting  free, 
vindicating,  in  which  we  find  Moses  often  using  it,  before  he 
ever  speaks  of  the  blood-avenger,  as  in  Gen.  xlviii.  15;  Exod. 
vi.  6  .  .  . ;  and  even  re-purchase  itself,  is,  in  Lev.  xxv.  31,  32. 
thence  termed  r6*O  geulla.  Derivatives  in  any  language  follow 
their  primatives,  but  very  slowly ;  and  when  verba  denominative 
descend  from  terms  of  law,  the  law  itself  must  be  ancient. 

" .  .  .  .  Mahomet  endeavoured  to  mitigate  this  law,  which 
was  often  dangerous  to  innocence ;  but  unfortunately  he  began  at 
the  wrong  end.  For,  instead  of  enjoining  a  previous  investigation, 
that  an  innocent  person  might  not  suffer  instead  of  the  guilty, 
he  recommended  as  an  act  of  mercy,  pleasing  in  the  sight  of 
God,  the  acceptance  of  a  pecuniary  compensation  from  the  actual 
murderer,  in  lieu  of  revenge.  His  words  are :  '  In  cases  of 
murder,  retaliation  is  prescribed  to  the  faithful,  so  that  freeman 
must  die  for  freeman,  slave  for  slave,  wife  for  wife.  But  when 
a  man's  nearest  kinsman  departs  from  that  right,  he  has  a  just 


294  Appendix. 

claim  against  the  murderer  for  a  moderate  compensation  in 
money,  the  acceptance  of  which  is  an  alleviation  of  the  crime  in 
the  sight  of  God,  and  an  act  of  mercy.  But  if  he  afterwards 
oversteps  this  rule/  (that  is  by  killing  the  person  to  whom  he 
has  remitted  the  murder),  '  God  will  punish  him  severely.  For 
the  security  of  your  lives  rests  on  the  right  of  retaliation.' — (See 
chap.  ii.  of  the  Koran,  v.  173-175.) 

"  In  this  strange  law,  which,  in  fact,  makes  the  right  of  retalia- 
tion quite  ineffectual  to  the  security  of  a  man's  life,  because  it 
can  be  compounded  for  by  the  payment  of  money  to  his  kinsman, 
Mahomet  manifests  a  much  greater  opposition  to  the  national 
maxims  of  honour  than  a  wise  legislator  would  have  done,  by 
representing  as  merciful,  and  pleasing  to  God,  a  practice  which 
to  be  sure  was  not  uncommon,  but  still  was  deemed  base 
and  selfish.  .  .  .  But  on  the  principles  of  sound  philosophy, 
such  a  transaction  is  by  no  means  acceptable  in  the  sight  of  God, 
who  commands  murderers  to  be  punished  without  mercy,  that 
men's  lives  may  be  secure ;  and  an  Arab,  bred  up  in  the  national 
ideas  of  honour,  must  always  have  had  a  stronger  inclination  to 
trespass  a  precept  of  his  religion,  thus  half  left  to  his  option, 
than  to  forfeit  his  honour.  I  remember  a  passage  of  an  Arabian 
poet,  who  lived  before  Mahomet,  which  describes  cowards  in  the 
following  terms  :  '  Those  who  injure  them  they  forgive,  and  to  the 
wicked  they  repay  good  for  evil :  men  so  pious  as  they  are,  God 
has  not  created  among  all  the  human  race  besides.  But  give  me 
the  man  who,  when  he  mounts  his  horse  or  camel,  is  furious  in 
attacking  his  enemy.'  .  .  .  Now  where  poems  of  such  a  nature 
express  the  sentiments  of  a  nation,  a  precept  of  false  morality, 
recommending  mercy  and  forgiveness  in  the  wrong  place,  could 
scarcely  have  much  influence,  except  with  a  few  enthusiasts,  who 
might  happen  to  be  among  the  people,  and  whose  belief  of 
religion  was  very  ardent. 

"  No  doubt,  in  those  countries  without  the  bounds  of  Arabia, 
where  the  people  had  not  the  same  ideas  of  honour  in  avenging 
blood,  and  where  the  Mahomedan  religion,  which  its  victorious 
adherents  propagated  by  the  sword,  was  adopted  only  from 
terror,  as  in  Persia  for  instance,  such  an  admonition  might  have 
an  influence  on  the  law.  Chardin,  in  his  Travels,  relates  that  in 
that  country,  when  a  person  is  murdered,  his  relations  go  before 


Appendix.  295 

a  court  of  justice,  making  a  great  outcry,  and  demanding  that 
the  murderer  be  delivered  up  to  them,  that  they  may  satiate 
their  revenge ;  and  that  he  is  accordingly  delivered  up  to  them 
by  the  judge,  in  these  words  :  *  I  give  this  murderer  into  your 
hands ;  take  satisfaction  yourselves  for  the  blood  he  has  shed ; 
but  remember  that  God  is  just  and  merciful ; '  which  manifestly 
allude  to  the  two  passages  above-quoted  from  the  Koran, — the 
relations  may  then,  if  they  please,  put  him  to  death,  and  that  in 
whatever  way  they  think  fit.  A  rich  murderer,  on  the  other 
hand,  endeavours  to  accommodate  matters  with  the  relations  of 
the  murdered  person,  and  to  prevail  on  them  to  accept  a 
pecuniary  compensation  ;  and  the  judge,  to  whom  he  also  gives 
money,  exhorts  them  to  mercy,  that  is  to  be  satisfied  with  such 
a  compensation,  although  he  cannot  compel  them  to  accept  it." 1 

1  Michaelis'  Commentaries  on  the  Laws  of  Moses,  Book  iii.  Arts.  131, 134, 136. 


Printed  by  R.  &  R.  CLARK,  Edinlut^-i. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 


Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


JUN     4 1970  4 9 


LD  21-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476 


YC  29c>76 


Wit 


BSI/?/ 
M? 


